The Trump Administration and Migration Protection Protocals (MPP)

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 13 of the second edition of the textbook (forthcoming in late 2020):

In 2018 and 2019, the United States experienced an influx of asylum seekers from Central America. A confluence of events has led to massive numbers of people fleeing the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, including gang violence, civil wars, political instability, extreme poverty and droughts (in short, nearly every push factor listed in Chapter 3). Between 2014 and 2018, about 265,000 people fled the region each year. In 2019, that number nearly doubled to 508,000, leading to a humanitarian crisis along the Southwest border of the United States.[1] Instead of trying to cross illegally, migrants often surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol to seek asylum. The U.S. immigration system plunged into a crisis as wait times for asylum cases soared. Prior to 2018, asylee applicants were sent to live with family members around the United States until their court dates to hear their claims. However, the Trump administration began requiring many migrants to wait in detention centers in the United States instead. Pressure mounted as conditions in the detention centers worsened due to overcrowding in late 2018.

In early 2019, the Trump administration issued its “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP), also known as “Remain in Mexico.” MPP requires that most migrants waiting for asylum hearings stay in Mexico instead of in the United States until their court date. Most people who want to claim asylum also must wait on the Mexican side of the border because the administration decided to limit the number of people who could start the application process each day, a decision it called “metering.” Many of the migrants live in dangerous and unsanitary conditions along the border, a situation made even worse when the coronavirus began in 2020. The harsh reality is that the vast majority of asylum seekers’ claims are denied: Only 13 percent of asylum applicants from the Northern Triangle were granted asylum in 2018 (Cheatham, 2019). Those who are denied are sent back to their home countries or to a third country such as Mexico. Thus, migrants often return to the same (or worse) conditions that initially motivated their perilous journey north.

For decades, the U.S. government has taken several steps to improve conditions in the Northern Triangle as a way to mitigate push factors for migration. The George W. Bush administration negotiated a free-trade agreement with seven Central American countries and provided $650 million in development grants (Cheatham, 2019). The Obama administration appropriated more than $2 billion in aid for the region to help with law enforcement to combat the drug trade. The Trump administration has unwound some of these efforts by significantly reducing aid and has said that aid to the region would not resume until governments curb out-migration.

Cheatham, A. (2019) “Central America’s Turbulent Northern Triangle.” Council on Foreign Relations, Backgrounder. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-turbulent-northern-triangle [12 April 2020].

 

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[1] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF11151.pdf [12 April 2020].