However, two other officials, with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), disputed that removing all foreigners caught at the border to Mexico was under consideration. The DHS and CBP officials said separately on Tuesday that US border officials would step up returns of Mexican nationals caught crossing the border illegally through an existing authority known as a "voluntary return." Under that practice, US officials can offer Mexican nationals caught at the border the option to return to Mexico as an alternative to formal deportation proceedings in the United States. Mexico has reported 82 coronavirus cases so far, compared with nearly 6,000 in the United States. The United States already sends non-Mexican asylum seekers to that country under a program known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).

Source: bd News24 March 18, 2020 07:52 UTC