U.S. stops flying migrant families across southern border states amid pressure from advocates

The U.S. government has stopped flying migrant families with children hundreds of miles across southern border states for the purpose of expelling them to Mexico amid mounting pressure and legal scrutiny from advocacy groups, Customs and Border Protection confirmed to CBS News.

For several months, U.S. officials had been placing families who recently crossed the border in south Texas on planes and transporting them to El Paso and San Diego in order to expel them to Mexico from those locations. The policy was designed to circumvent the Mexican government's refusal to accept Central American families with young children in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the busiest sector for unlawful crossings. CBS News has spoken to multiple Central American parents who crossed the Texas border with children as young as 2 years old and tried to ask for U.S. asylum. They said they were detained in Border Patrol facilities for days before being flown to San Diego, where U.S. officials expelled them to Mexico.