GOP demands answers from Democrats who visited Mexico with lawmaker accused of coaching migrants

Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee Monday demanded that their Democratic counterparts explain why they traveled to Mexico on two occasions this summer with a congresswoman who sent congressional staff south of the border to coach asylum seekers.

The Washington Examiner reported in July that aides to Texas Democrat Veronica Escobar traveled to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico earlier this summer to find migrants who been returned from border crossings in El Paso, Texas, under the “remain in Mexico” policy. The aides then coached some of those who were told to await U.S. asylum decisions in Mexico how to exploit loopholes in the Migration Protection Protocols program.

“They went through and interviewed everybody, cherry-picked them, brought them back, and now are using them as tag lines. They’re going over there and manufacturing a lot of these issues,” a National Border Patrol Council official in El Paso said in July. “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."

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