US starts sending asylum seekers across Arizona border
ASTRID GALVAN and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN ,Associated Press•January 2, 2020
FTA:
PHOENIX (AP) — The U.S. government on Thursday began sending asylum-seekers back to Nogales, Mexico, to await court hearings that will be scheduled roughly 350 miles (563 kilometers) away in Juarez, Mexico.
Authorities are expanding a program known as Remain in Mexico that requires tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait out their immigration court hearings in Mexico. Until this week, the government was driving some asylum seekers from Nogales, Arizona, to El Paso, Texas, so they could be returned to Juarez.
Now, asylum-seekers will have to find their own way through dangerous Mexican border roads.
About 30 asylum seekers were sent to Nogales, Mexico, on Thursday, said Gilda Loureiro, director of the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora.