And it’s working.
Via Free Beacon:
Thousands of would-be illegal immigrants are being returned to await asylum hearings in Mexico as part of a program the Trump administration has credited with curbing the recent wave of family migration at the southwestern border.
The Migrant Protection Protocols—more colloquially known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy—are regulations issued by former secretary of homeland security Kirstjen Nielsen in December 2018. Under the MPP, a subset of individuals who claim to be seeking asylum after being apprehended at the border now must await the results of their immigration court hearings in Mexico, rather than being detained—or, more often, released on their own recognizance—in the United States.
Asylum seekers, especially from non-contiguous countries, pose a unique challenge to the immigration system. Preexisting laws and regulations mean that asylum seekers can only be detained for so long before being released, while the large immigration court backlog essentially guarantees that these time thresholds will be passed. The result is a system of de facto catch-and-release, in which an individual can simply claim asylum at the border and then disappear into the interior while his or her case is processed.