US launches plan for asylum seekers to wait in Mexico

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration has quietly launched an effort to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration courts.

The policy change that began Tuesday comes despite clear reservations and conflicting messages from the Mexican government.

The U.S. returned one asylum seeker to Mexico — a 55-year-old Honduran man — on the first day of the new practice. If the policy survives an anticipated legal challenge, it would be one of the most dramatic shifts to the U.S. immigration system in Donald Trump’s presidency.

Mexican officials sent mixed signals on the crucial point of whether they would impose limits on accepting families.

The launch is limited to San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, the nation’s busiest, though the government wants to expand it to other crossings.