The organization Human Rights First has released an updated report documenting nearly 640 violent crimes that have been committed against asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait out their cases in Mexico under inhumane and illegal Trump administration policy—nearly double the number the group listed in its October report.
The findings continue to confirm that the Migrant Protection Protocols policy, or Remain in Mexico, is a humanitarian disaster. “There are at least 636 publicly reported cases of kidnapping, rape, torture, assault, and other violent attacks against asylum seekers and migrants returned to Mexico under MPP,” the report said. Nearly 140 kidnappings or attempted kidnappings have horrifically targeted children who have been returned to Mexico with their families.
“A three-year-old boy from Honduras and his parents were kidnapped after DHS returned them to Nuevo Laredo,” the report continued. “The boy’s parents were separated, and the woman reported hearing the kidnappers beat and electrocute her husband. When she last saw him lying on the ground, beaten and bleeding, he told her, ‘Love, they’re going to kill us.’ The woman and her three-year-old son were released but she does not know if her husband is alive.” This terrorism targeting vulnerable families has in part forced some desperate parents to send their kids across the border into the U.S. alone.
Yet in one of the worst lies yet from the Trump administration, former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan had the gall to falsely claim in October that Remain in Mexico has “successfully provided protections” to returned families. At that time, Human Rights First had documented 340 instances of violence against families. The organization cautions that this new reported number may still only be “the tip of the iceberg, as the vast majority of returnees haven’t been interviewed by researchers or journalists.”
The report also continues to confirm that the administration is returning people who it had said should be excluded from Remain in Mexico: “DHS claims that ‘individuals from vulnerable populations may be excluded on a case-by-case basis;’ yet, the agency returns vulnerable individuals including those with ‘known physical/mental health issues’ and LGBTQ persons, as well as Mexican nationals, who are not eligible for MPP.”
In October, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro traveled to a refugee camp in Matamoros to personally escort a number of asylum-seekers who should have been excluded from Remain in Mexico back into the U.S. Border officials, however, sent them back. “Hours after we were told LGBT and disabled asylum seekers would have their cases heard,” Castro tweeted, “they have been returned to Mexico. By law, these migrants are supposed to be exempt from the Remain in Mexico policy—but Customs and Border Protection had decided to ignore their due process. Outrageous.”
“Trump administration officials continue to knowingly send people who have asked for refugee protection to be kidnapped, exploited, beaten, raped and even killed in Mexico,” said Human Rights First’s Kennji Kizuka. “Despite overwhelming evidence that these forced returns are a human rights catastrophe, Trump administration and DHS officials continue to implement, expand and defend their illegal and dangerous returns.”
Not without protest from whistleblowers within the government, however. Asylum officer Doug Stephens quit rather than help implement Remain in Mexico, saying that he knew just five interviews in that this asylum policy has in fact been rigged to work against asylum-seekers. Remain in Mexico, he told MSNBC’s Alex Witt last week, was “clearly designed to make individuals fail and send everyone back without really giving them a fair shot.”