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US Announces $20 Million Aid Package for Central America, Mexico


FILE - Migrants rest on a gazebo at a park after they were expelled from the U.S. and pushed by Mexican authorities off an area where they had been staying, in Reynosa, Mexico, March 20, 2021.
FILE - Migrants rest on a gazebo at a park after they were expelled from the U.S. and pushed by Mexican authorities off an area where they had been staying, in Reynosa, Mexico, March 20, 2021.

The United States on Friday announced an additional $20 million package of humanitarian aid for Mexico and Central America.

The aid will "help meet urgent humanitarian needs for the nearly 700,000 asylum-seekers, refugees, and vulnerable migrants in Central America and Mexico," the State Department said in a press release.

Specifically, the money will go toward shelter, health care, legal assistance and mental health services, the State Department said.

The U.S. has provided more than $331 million in aid to Central America and Mexico in Fiscal Year 2021, making it the "largest single donor of humanitarian aid in Central America and Mexico and to asylum-seekers, refugees, and vulnerable migrants in the region."

The move comes as the Biden administration announced it will comply with a court order and resume, in mid-November, an immigration program commonly referred to as "Remain in Mexico," which was started by former President Donald Trump.

That program requires asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico until they have a U.S. court hearing.

In June, Biden ended the program, formally called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), but a federal court in August overruled the administration.

Biden is reportedly looking to make another effort to rescind the program.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.

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