Thousands of migrants take free rides home
21 Aug 2019
More than 2,000 Central American migrants seeking to settle in the United States have given up and accepted free rides home under a 10-month-old programme funded by the US government and run by a United Nations agency, according to a U.N. official. The “Assisted Voluntary Return” programme has paid for buses or flights for 2,170 migrants who either never reached the United States or were detained after crossing the border and then sent to Mexico to await US immigration hearings, according to Christopher Gascon, an official with the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).