Mexico Won’t Let Asylum Seekers Wait Indefinitely At the Border

Mexico’s incoming government pushed back against a report that the country will let asylum seekers wait there indefinitely while their immigration petitions wind through the slow U.S. courts, according to The Associated Press. The incoming government’s denial stems from a report that Mexico planned on permitting asylum seekers to stay during the pendency of their claims under an agreement with the Trump administration. The now disputed deal was one of several ideas that President Trump had recently floated to discourage immigrants from crossing into the U.S. at the Southern border. Trump’s administration didn’t succeed in negotiating this plan with Mexican officials, the AP said. “There is no agreement of any sort between the incoming Mexican government and the U.S. government,” said Olga Sanchez, the incoming Interior Minister. Several hours prior, however, Sanchez was quoted by The Washington Post as saying Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would allow migrants to stay as a “short-term solution." Per the AP, Sanchez didn’t say in her statement why she had been quoted as initially claiming there was a deal. Some 5,000 Central American migrants have recently arrived in Tijuana after traveling toward the U.S. via caravan. Officials at the San Diego entry point reportedly process fewer than 100 asylum claims per day, creating a bottleneck.