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Friday, March 29, 2024

Brazilians sent to Mexico left in confusion

Duration: 01:35s 0 shares 1 views

Brazilians sent to Mexico left in confusion
Brazilians sent to Mexico left in confusion

Bewildered, sad and disappointed, Brazilians migrants sent from the United States to Mexico this week were left wondering how they had ended up in another country whose language they do not understand.

Eve Johnson reports.

Migrants from Brazil hoping to start a new life in the U.S. are now being sent to Mexico, disappointed and bewildered to find themselves in a country whose language they don't understand.

It's all part of an expansion of a Trump administration program called Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP.

Among the first batch of Portuguese speakers sent across the southern border: Tania Costa and her six year-old daughter.

(SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) BRAZILIAN MIGRANT, TANIA COSTA, SAYING: "I'm very sad, thinking about why I have been sent here.

I was already in the U.S., so why send me to Mexico?

Why not Brazil?

There was a court process and everything but I wasn't allowed to stay.

I was sent to Mexico.

I'm not Mexican." MPP requires asylum seekers who cross the southern border to go back to Mexico as their cases make their way through the U.S. court system.

The program is one of several policies from U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration aimed at slashing the number of asylum seekers at the border.

More than 57,000 non-Mexican migrants have been sent back since the program began a year ago.

But until this week, it's been limited to Spanish speakers.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security made the announcement Wednesday (January 29) citing a sharp spike in the number of Brazilians arrested at the border.

The DHS also noted that the program was not limited to one nationality or language.

A Mexican official said the Brazilians will be taken in at a government-run shelter and provide with an interpreter.

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