President Trump’s new “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy is having a big impact on illegal immigration on the southern border, but there’s reportedly one classification of migrants who are getting special treatment: “extra-continentals” from the war torn regions of the Middle East and Africa.

“A gov source yesterday told me a Pakistani migrant crossed to Texas this weekend who had Taliban associations,” the Center for Immigration Studies’ Todd Bensman posted to Twitter. “We’ll free him shortly anyway to pursue asylum – exempt like all Pakistanis from Trump’s wait in Mexico policy. Terrible mistake happening.”

The tweet is based on Bensman’s on-the-ground observations and interviews in Mexico, along with confidential conversations with U.S. immigration officials and migrant smugglers.

One matronly smuggler in Tapachula, near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, is known as Mama Africa and she runs a restaurant and boarding house of sorts for migrants on the journey north to the United States.

“There are more Africans coming now than I have ever seen before,” she told Bensman last month, as she looked after Bangladeshis, Haitians, and Nepalese.

The migrants are among “extra-continentals” – non Spanish speaking immigrants from beyond South and Central America – who are attempting to exploit apparent loopholes in the U.S.’s new “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy.

“These are U.S. asylum hopefuls from Ethiopia, Somalia, Iran, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Nepal, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and many other bloody hotspots,” Bensman reports.

“Senior and lower-ranking DHS officials confirm that President Trump’s much-credited ‘Wait in Mexico’ and ‘Safe Third Country’ policies, requiring push-backs from the American border are not being applied to extra-continental migrants for unknown reasons,” he wrote.

Sources contend migrants from beyond Central and South America continue to be processed by border patrol and released into America to await adjudication of their asylum claims, often years in the future.

The issue raises security risks, Bensman argues, because U.S. officials often have no reliable resources other than the migrants themselves to confirm their identity, and many come from some of the most violent places on earth.

“Failing to apply push-back policies to extra-continentals while they wait inside the country presents a profound missed opportunity for the United States to use new immigration-control tools to reduce risks some of these migrants might be deployed terrorists, unreformed war criminals, or violent militia fighters with blood on their hands and predisposed to victimizing American citizens,” he wrote.

“Not much is publicly known about the extent of security and background vetting going on now. But some reporting already suggests that DHS intelligence officers do not put all Middle Easterners through enhanced vetting paces, or simply can’t. Because some hail from countries, such as Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where record-keeping systems are either off-limits to Americans, or don’t exist for Americans to check.”

Fortunately, officials in Mexico don’t seem to make the same distinction between South and Central American migrants and others from the Middle East and Africa, and have applied immigration agreements with the U.S. to all.

Following an agreement with the U.S. last summer, “Mexico began deporting anyone who didn’t want to apply for Mexican asylum, and making those who did wait in southern Mexico, forced to comply and prevented from easily advancing north by (6,000) National Guard at interior roadblocks,” Bensman reports.

“Now, Mexico’s policies envelop all the extra-continental migrants, who can plainly see and hear that the American border is still open to them just beyond reach. Riots and disturbances among acutely frustrated Africans followed Mexico’s decision. But the Mexicans have held fast.”

Mexico’s asylum policies are now the only deterrent for “extra-continental” migrants in their journey across the world to the U.S., but it’s nonetheless sending a powerful message that’s undoubtedly making an impact.

Claudia Bresenio, a top Mexican immigration official, said the number of Africans arriving in Tapachula is declining drastically, based in large part on the experiences of those forced to apply for asylum there.

A Cameroonian named Peter told Bensman it’s a miserable experience that takes six months to play out, and he’s now discouraging anyone who asks from following in his footsteps.

“I tell them never to attempt to come here. This is another nightmare,” Peter told Bensman. “I can’t advise no one to come. If I knew I couldn’t pass through, I wouldn’t have come here.”