First asylum seekers from Mexico’s Matamoros border camp enter US

Some of the asylum seekers have been there more than a year due to immigration rules set by former President Trump.

The first asylum seekers from a Mexican border camp that had become a symbol of Trump-era immigration restrictions entered the United States on Thursday under a new policy meant to end the hardships endured by migrants in dangerous border towns. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the initial group comprised 27 people who had been living in the makeshift camp in Matamoros opposite Brownsville, Texas. Some residents have lived there for more than a year under former President Donald Trump’s controversial Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) programme requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for US court hearings.