Just before the holiday, Mother Jones ran a Q&A between me and reporter Noah Lanard about the Trump administration’s newly announced “Remain in Mexico” policy. At least until it’s struck down by the courts, this policy, agreed with Mexico’s new government, will let asylum-seekers from third countries await their immigration court hearing dates inside Mexico.

I voice my perplexity about why Mexico would have agreed to this. It could leave hundreds of thousands of people spending years on Mexican soil waiting for under-funded, undermanned U.S. immigration courts to get through their backlog.

[T]hese decisions are being made by Mexico’s foreign ministry more than the agencies that are actually in charge of dealing with migrants. The foreign minister is a former mayor of Mexico City who is a smart guy but I don’t think is well-versed in the ins and outs of migration.

>I can’t imagine they’ve reckoned with the sheer number of people they would be dealing with. I think maybe in their mind they thought they only would be taking 10,000 a year or something. But it will be many times that if this is fully implemented. In 2018 alone, 93,000 people had credible fear interviews [the first step in the asylum process], and just last month, more than 30,000 Central American kids and family members arrived at the border. I think they’re going to be backpedalling.

Read the whole thing here: Why Trump’s Latest Asylum Decision Will Put Migrants’ Lives in Danger