Border agents promise better chance of asylum for those agreeing to go to Mexico and apply there, then strands them with no access

Border agents are promising some Venezuelan asylum seekers a greater chance to stay in the US if they agree to first return to Mexico and make appointments to re-enter from there – or otherwise be deported – but then the migrants are flown to the Mexican interior and stranded there without any way to access the US asylum system, immigration advocates have warned.

People report being pressured by American federal agents into signing up for the arrangement, called “voluntary return” which involves a choice between going back across the US-Mexico border or to the countries they originally fled, with the US government employing a kind of stick and carrot approach, as they seek to deal with fewer people in the US immigration system. The “stick” is being threatened with deportation and related consequences such as a five-year ban on returning to the US, unless they agree to leave – before they go through the interview that screens for a credible fear of going home. And the “carrot” is asylum seekers being told they will have a better chance of being granted refuge if they try again through a specific Biden administration-approved process from another country.