Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

by Jonathan Blitzer

The asylum process had changed by the time they arrived in El Paso. Denis and his children were briefly detained, given a court date in December, and sent back to Mexico to wait, under a new policy called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). For Central Americans trying to obtain asylum in the US, MPP now required them to stay in Mexico for the duration of their legal proceedings, which could last several months. When it was time to appear before a US immigration judge, asylum seekers had to travel back to a port of entry and reenter custody; at the end of the day’s proceedings, a bus would take them back to Mexico, where they would wait until their next court date. Denis didn’t understand all the details, just that he and his family were being shunted back to where they’d been kidnapped.