The Trump administration’s policy forcing vulnerable asylum-seekers to wait out their cases in Mexico has been a clear disaster despite administration claims it would ease the hugely backlogged immigration courts. In fact, Reuters finds, it’s just made the situation worse. “One judge was booked for 174 cases in one day.”
“In June, a U.S. immigration official told a group of congressional staffers that the program had ‘broken the courts,’ according to two participants and contemporaneous notes taken by one of them. The official said that the court in El Paso at that point was close to running out of space for paper files, according to the attendees, who requested anonymity because the meeting was confidential.”
It’s further burdened already traumatized asylum-seekers. Under the inhumane “Migrant Protection Protocols” policy, or “Remain in Mexico,” families are expected to wait for months for their court date, and then show up at a port of entry to be escorted over by U.S. border officials. But in some instances, those officials have been late or not shown up at all, and if asylum-seekers miss their court dates, they can lose their cases.
Katia, a Nicaraguan asylum-seeker, waited for two months in Mexico. On her date, she went to the port of entry three hours early, to make sure she wouldn’t miss her 7:30 AM slot. “But border agents didn’t even escort her into the U.S. port of entry until after 9 a.m.,” Reuters reports, and was then “left stranded there.” Katia’s attorney managed to convince the judge to reschedule her case, but others weren’t so fortunate: “Later, staff at the lawyer’s office learned that at least two families in the group were ordered deported for not showing up to court.”
Other reports have corroborated intentionally reckless actions from U.S. officials that have hindered the cases of asylum-seekers. Some immigration officers are writing “known address,” or something close to that, instead of an actual, legally required address on asylum-seekers’ paperwork, The New York Times reported last month. What happens if their court date changes? So much for getting a notice of that, and if they miss that court date, we know what can happen.
As many as 42,000 asylum-seekers have now been forced to Mexico to wait out their cases, many in areas where violence and kidnappings are common. The administration now plans to open up “tent courts” in Texas, where 20 judges are expected to handle over 4,600 cases, Reuters reported. Having observed this administration’s ongoing assault on the right to asylum for over two years now, it’s clear to all of us this assembly-line justice will be no justice at all for these families.