U.S. shuts border to stop migrant rush from Mexico
After an appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy, a stand off at the US Mexico border.
U.S. authorities said they closed the busy Ciudad Juarez-El Paso border bridge after more than a hundred mostly Cuban migrants tried to cross in response to the court ruling.
Put in place just a year ago, the program - known as the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP - has already forced nearly 60,000 people to be sent back to Mexico as they wait for hearings in immigration courts.
There, they are vulnerable to kidnapping, rape, robbery and other crimes while living in sometimes unsanitary conditions.
But the Trump administration went to the courts to request a pause in the temporary block, which was was granted, putting the policy back into effect as the administration appeals to the Supreme Court.
The policy suspension and then quick reversal caused whiplash among those who had hoped to escape Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN MIGRANT, HECTOR, SAYING:
"We are waiting that to open the bridge to get to the United States because Mexico is not a safe country for us, none of Latin America country. We are waiting to be opened (the border bridge) because we are victims of abuse, kidnappings. The police take our money."
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the plaintiffs, who included 11 asylum seekers and several immigration advocacy groups, were likely to succeed in their argument that the program violated U.S. immigration law and international obligations on the treatment of asylum seekers.
If that happens it would be a major blow to Trump, who has declared the policy a success in reducing the flow of hundreds of thousands of people from Central America into the United States.
