The United States and Mexico have again restarted the Mexican Interior Repatriation Program (MIRP), now active for its seventh consecutive summer. The program, which is a bilateral effort of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of the Interior, returns Mexican nationals found in the Sonora Arizona desert back to where they are from in Mexico.

First started in 2004, the goal of MIRP is to reduce the loss of lives caused by the smuggling and trafficking of aliens across the Arizona/Mexico border. Candidates for MIRP include persons who are identified as at risk and vulnerable to heat or victimization by criminal trafficking operations.

Under the program, Mexican nationals that are caught by U.S. border patrol agents in the Yuma and Tucson regions of Arizona are taken to DHS facilities and are offered the opportunity to voluntarily participate in the program. Participants are then returned to their home regions via plane and bus.

Over the past 6 years, more than 93,000 Mexican nationals have been repatriated under MIRP.