Dem rep accused of coaching asylum-seekers to exploit loophole in 'remain in Mexico' policy: report

Customs and Border Protection officials believe Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas has sent aides to Mexico to coach asylum-seekers on how to exploit loopholes that would allow them to wait out their cases in the United States, according to the Washington Examiner.

Escobar is the congresswoman who took over for Beto O'Rourke in El Paso after O'Rourke pursued a Senate seat in 2018. Her staff has been interviewing thousands of asylum-seekers who have been sent back to Mexico to wait for their asylum cases to be heard, and some say those staff members are fraudulently tampering with the process.

"What we're hearing from management is that they're attempting to return people, and the story was changed in Mexico, where a person who understood Spanish before now doesn't understand — where a person who didn't have any health issues before now has health issues," said a National Border Patrol Council representative.

One stipulation in the "remain in Mexico" policy for asylum-seekers is that they cannot be forced to wait out their asylum cases in Mexico unless they're fluent in Spanish, because they may be waiting there for years.

Some Border Patrol officials have said Escobar aides are bringing some people back from Mexico and claiming that they can't understand Spanish, even though they communicated in Spanish days or weeks before.

The fear among Border Patrol officials, the Washington Examiner reports, is that Escobar and her staff will use these cases as a way to accuse Border Patrol of wrongly sending many immigrants back to Mexico.

"We had finally found a happy medium 'cause we always get crapped on when it comes to immigration laws, and then they're finding loopholes to bring them back," a Border Patrol official told the Examiner.