2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro traveled to Matamoros, Mexico, on Monday to meet with some of the tens of thousands of vulnerable asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait out their cases—many in dangerous regions—under the inhumane and illegal Trump administration policy that Castro said, as president, he would “immediately” end.
"There are thousands of migrants who are suffering because of Trump's Remain in Mexico policy,” Castro told NBC News before the visit. “They are being kidnapped, extorted and subjected to violence. I want to speak out particularly for the most vulnerable, migrants with disability and migrants who are LGBTQ. They've been particularly hurt by this policy. If I’m elected, I’ll end this policy immediately.”
Invited by the Texas Civil Rights Project to Mexico, Castro tweeted that he met vulnerable asylum-seekers who are supposed to be exempt from Migrant Protection Protocols, but have been forced out anyway by U.S. officials. In Mexico, “he was met with applause” by families, tweeted BuzzFeed News reporter Adolfo Flores. In one video, a woman is seen signing to the former Housing and Urban Development secretary that she’s deaf. In another tweet, Castro is seen talking to a weeping mom who has been stuck in Matamoros for months with her children, who says, “They’ve been running high fevers.”
Castro then escorted a group of “12 LGBTQ and disabled asylum seekers who should not be included in the remain in Mexico policy” back to the port of entry to ask to have their cases reassessed, with his national press secretary, Sawyer Hackett, tweeting that the candidate “demanded to speak to supervisors at the CBP checkpoint and their cases are now being heard.”
But Castro’s visit also sought to call attention to the plight of the now nearly 50,000 people who have been forced out under Remain in Mexico. The policy, Castro told a group of reporters, “is a disaster. People should not live like this. What has happened here is that these people have come to the door of the United States, and President Trump has told them, ‘no, you go over there to this neighborhood that is unsafe, and unsanitary.”
In another tweet, Castro is seen placing flowers at a riverside memorial for asylum-seekers and others who have tragically drowned after “desperately crossing the river as a last resort for asylum.” Visible on crosses are the names of Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his baby Valeria, who died after being forced to wait in Mexico due to the administration’s anti-asylum policies. One cross near those of Oscar and Valeria reads “Unknown.”
The policies Castro has released throughout his campaign have addressed comprehensive immigration reform—the first plan from a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to do so—and the escalating number of climate refugees fleeing Central America for the U.S., but Castro’s visit to Mexico is just as powerful at putting a face to this humanitarian crisis. The administration frequently portrays these families as numbers, which is itself a tool designed to dehumanize them. But they are human beings deserving of a chance to thrive, and to live.
