WASHINGTON • People seeking asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico will no longer be released in the United States and will instead be forced to wait in Mexico under a policy announced Thursday that marks one of the most significant moves by President Donald Trump to reshape the immigration system. The measure is an aggressive response to a large and growing number of Central American asylum seekers, many of them families, who are typically released in the United States while their cases slowly wind through clogged immigration courts. It does not apply to children traveling alone or to Mexican asylum seekers.

The U.S. and Mexican governments called it a unilateral move by the Trump administration, but the announcement came two days after the U.S. pledged $10.6 billion in aid for Central America and southern Mexico to make people feel less compelled to leave. Critics, including some legal experts, said migrants would be unsafe in some Mexican border towns and said the U.S. was illegally abandoning its humanitarian role, hinting at a legal challenge against a backdrop of previous courtroom setbacks for Trump on immigration.

The government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1, said foreigners will have temporary permission to remain in Mexico on humanitarian grounds after getting a notice to appear in U.S. immigration court and they will be allowed to seek work authorization.

Asylum seekers who pass an initial screening in the U.S. — about three of four do — typically wait years before their cases are resolved, allowing them to put down roots in the U.S. Many are fitted with electronic ankle monitors. Administration officials say many are gaming the system and making false claims as a way to stay in the U.S. While most pass their initial screening, only about 9 percent are eventually granted asylum.

“They will not be able to disappear into the United States,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said.

A man looks at the U.S. border from Mexico where workers are replacing parts of border wall.

the associated press