In a Mexican border city, Trump’s plan to discourage migrants appears to be working as some give up on asylum

Saturday, 27 July 2019JAY ROOT

The controversial "remain in Mexico" plan is becoming one of the Trump administration’s most successful strategies in keeping migrants from gaining entry into the U.S. Just ask the migrants who got released into cartel weary Nuevo Laredo this week. Many are headed home.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — It was the first phone call to his family back in Honduras since crossing the Texas-Mexico border, and Olvin Alexander Buezo had bad news.

He wasn’t in the United States as expected. His 7-year-old son would not be attending elementary school this fall in Foley, Alabama. There would be no good-paying U.S. job to finance the $6,000 debt he incurred to pay their smuggler.

“I already told [my uncle] to sell everything,” Buezo said during the brief but somber phone call to his wife on Tuesday. Their small “farm” — less than three acres — would have to go.

“There’s no other way,” he said. “The important thing is to get back home alive in Honduras.” By Thursday, Buezo was already in southern Mexico, on the way back home after abandoning his asylum claim.