A leading immigration attorney is calling the Trump administration’s policy that has forced vulnerable asylum-seekers to wait out their cases in perilous regions of Mexico “a dangerous, chaotic mess,” with a clear goal: “to end asylum protections and turn America’s back on men, women and children who have fled to the U.S. in fear for their lives.”
David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, writes in a Medium post that 42,000 asylum-seekers so far have been forced to Mexico under Migrant Protection Protocols, aka “Remain in Mexico,” an inhumane and illegal policy that is anything but “protection.” Leopold notes that contrary to the administration’s false claim that “Mexico will provide them with all appropriate humanitarian protections for the duration of their stay,” only about 1,000 out of 20,000 asylum-seekers in the city of Juarez have found shelter.
But even then, “The several migrant shelters opened by the Mexican government have been infiltrated by cartels, human traffickers and other criminals who target asylum seekers for kidnapping,” Leopold continues, “often scouting out those with cell phones to better enable kidnappers to extort ransom from family members back home.” In one instance, armed men in search of Cuban asylum-seekers to extort kidnapped a pastor who runs one shelter.
The attorney says that at the kangaroo “tent courts” the administration has running on the U.S. side of the southern border, the few asylum-seekers who have been able to appear for their hearings pleaded with the immigration judge for their safety, saying they’d “been assaulted or kidnapped or otherwise feared returning to Mexico,” Gus Bova of Texas Observer reported this month. In fact, the U.S. is sending asylum-seekers to Mexican regions that “the State Department warns Americans travelers not to visit because of widespread crime and the risk of being kidnapped.”
“MPP also effectively denies asylum seekers the right to an attorney,” Leopold continued. “Despite DHS’s claim that migrants subject to MPP will have access to counsel, U.S. attorneys and advocates on the ground in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez report that access to counsel for migrants waiting in Mexico is all but cut off. Asylum applicants remaining in Mexico are prohibited from entering the U.S. to consult with U.S. attorneys.”
The barbaric “zero tolerance” policy resulting in the state-sanctioned kidnapping of thousands of children has been just one humanitarian crisis created by this administration. “Remain in Mexico” is now the latest one. “Bearing witness at the southern border transforms the horror of the Trump administration’s asylum policies from headlines and chyrons to reality,” Leopold said. “Children, women, and men who are desperate and fleeing for their lives are being subjected to danger, cruelty, and a Kafkaesque asylum application process under MPP.” Read his entire post here.