Biden steps up family expulsions

The United States is expelling migrants to Mexico far from where they are caught crossing the border, according to Reuters witnesses, in a move that circumvents the refusal of authorities in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas who stopped accepting the return of migrant families with younger children. 

The practice is a sign that President Joe Biden is toughening his approach to the growing humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexican border after his administration's entreaties for Central American migrants to stay home have failed to stop thousands from heading north.

Some families caught at the border in Texas' Rio Grande Valley said in interviews they were flown to El Paso, Texas, after being held in custody just a few days. From there, they were escorted by US officials to the international bridge to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, around1,300 km away from where they were first picked up by US border patrol agents.

A Reuters photographer saw planes landing in El Paso this week that were loaded with dozens of migrant families with young children, including babies in diapers, and then saw the same families crossing the international bridge.

Some passengers interviewed by Reuters once they crossed into Mexico said they had been awakened in their holding cells at night by border agents and not told where they were going as they were loaded on buses and taken to the airport.

Landon Hutchens, a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman, said that due to a lack of capacity in the Rio Grande Valley, migrants have been sent to El Paso for processing, as well as Laredo, Texas, and San Diego, California.