Donald Trump claims US asylum seekers will stay in Mexico, but new government there denies deal
- Plan known as Remain in Mexico was seen as a way to dissuade thousands of Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the US
- But Mexico’s future interior minister Olga Sanchez insists ‘there is no agreement of any type’
US President Donald Trump said that migrants at the US-Mexico border would stay in Mexico until their asylum claims were individually approved in US courts, but Mexico’s incoming government denied they had struck any deal.
Mexico’s incoming interior minister said there was “no agreement of any type between the future government of Mexico and the United States”.
Olga Sanchez Cordero, also the top domestic policy official for president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who takes office on December 1, said that the incoming government was in talks with the US but emphasised that they could not make any agreement since they were not yet in government.
Sanchez ruled out that Mexico would be declared a “safe third country” for asylum claimants, following a Washington Post report of a deal with the Trump administration known as “Remain in Mexico”, which quoted her calling it a “short-term solution”.
The plan, according to the newspaper, foresees migrants staying in Mexico while their asylum claims in the United States were being processed, potentially ending a system Trump decries as “catch and release” that has until now often allowed those seeking refuge to wait on safer US soil.
