The United States has tried for months to get Mexico’s leaders to agree to house those migrants, and on Thursday Mexico’s new government reluctantly agreed.
The American secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen M. Nielsen, said the move would prevent people from using the asylum process as a way of slipping into the United States and remaining in the country illegally.
“Today we are announcing historic measures to bring the illegal immigration crisis under control,” she said. “Aliens trying to game the system to get into our country illegally will no longer be able to disappear into the United States, where many skip their court dates.”
In a statement, she said, “'Catch and release’ will be replaced with ‘catch and return.'”
Mexican officials say they were told of the U.S. decision Thursday morning in letters from the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Mexico, John S. Creamer. The letters stated that the returns would begin immediately under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry has essentially agreed to accept the decision by the United States, and will be forced to house thousands of people from other countries, particularly from Central America, as they await their asylum decisions.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Roberto Velasco, said the move did not represent an agreement between the two countries, but rather “a unilateral move by the United States that we have to respond to.”
Velasco said the rules would apply only to new asylum applicants, not to individuals who have already entered the United States with processes underway.
The United States did not initially make clear if the policy applied only to new applicants.
Mexico’s decision to accept the asylum-seekers is likely to be seen as a capitulation by the new government to President Donald Trump, who proclaimed over Twitter two weeks ago that Mexico would house asylum applicants to the United States on its soil.
The decision to turn Mexico into a waiting room for migrants seeking entry to the United States is likely to stir anger in Mexico.
The move is a sharp departure from decades of U.S. asylum practice, according to legal experts and advocates. The United States has long accepted individuals from across the world fleeing harm or persecution in their home countries.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.