Driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of vulnerable people headed north, but lacking the funds to deport them, Mexican authorities are employing a simple but harsh tactic: wearing migrants out until they give up.

That means migrants are churning in limbo here as authorities round them up across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. Some have been punted back as many as six times.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that the policy protects migrants.

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But the moves have forced migrants, including pregnant women and children, into even more precarious situations. That’s likely to worsen under President Joe Biden’s new asylum restrictions, analysts say.

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