Two dozen Democratic senators, led by New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, are calling on the Trump administration to end inhumane—and illegal—policy that has forced thousands of asylum-seekers to wait out their cases in Mexico. “Under the Remain in Mexico policy,” they write, “the United States has turned its back on its domestic and international legal obligations by forcing men, women, and children to await resolution of their U.S. asylum cases in parts of Mexico plagued by violence.”
This policy has already been a death sentence, with the drowning death of a Guatemalan woman in July. Vilma Mendoza had already been forced to wait for weeks in Mexico and still had weeks to go before her court date. In desperation, she attempted to swim back into the U.S. Among other violence, the senators continue, “there has also been a growing number of reports from the border of the kidnapping, extortion, trafficking, rape, and murder of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.”
Human Rights First said in a report that as many as 150 asylum-seekers have become victims of violence after being sent back to Mexico. “In April 2019,” the senators told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin McAleenan, “a Honduran woman and her 5-year-old daughter, who had been returned to Ciudad Juárez after their U.S. court hearing, were kidnapped by a taxi driver who threatened to kill them if their family did not pay a ransom.”
To date the U.S. has forced out nearly 38,000 vulnerable people, and the senators say that number could skyrocket to as high as 60,000 in the coming weeks. “While in Mexico, these asylum seekers have limited access to lawyers and shelter, which makes it nearly impossible for them to prepare their cases and effectively denies them meaningful access to the U.S. asylum system.” According to a recent Los Angeles Times report, “a little more than 1% of the asylum seekers had managed to find legal representation from Mexico.”
“The growing body of evidence that migrants fleeing persecution face abuse or even death, along with the fact that the Remain in Mexico policy flouts our legal obligation to asylum seekers, underscores why we demand an end to this dangerous policy,” the senators say. “It is imperative that the United States end this reckless course of action and reaffirm its commitment to the principles of due process on which this country was founded.”