How U.S. Immigration Policy is Putting Asylum Seekers in Harm’s Way and What You Can Do About it

“Mommy, I don’t want to die,” Daniela,*, a 7-year-old girl tells her mother as she watches cartel members drag multiple people away for not being able to pay ransom. Once the United States forces Central American migrants to go back to Mexico after legally seeking asylum in the U.S., kidnappings, extortion, rape, beatings, armed robberies, and other forms of trauma await child asylum seekers and their families. These families get dropped off in dangerous Mexican border cities like Nuevo Laredo, the backdrop of Daniela’s story from last November. Criminals are preying on vulnerable Central American children and their families. Along with other asylum ban policies, the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, is delivering them into the hands of violent gang members every day that the policy continues.

Asylum seekers have built a tent encampment in Matamoros, MX. For many months, they went without proper sanitation, access to bathrooms, or clean drinking water. People living in tents are waiting up to a year for their asylum cases to be heard in U.S. immigration courts.

MPP, implemented in January 2019, states that Spanish-speaking non-Mexican migrants must wait for their U.S. immigration hearings in Mexico despite the U.S. knowing how dangerous these cities are. The State Department categorizes multiple cities under MPP as “Level 4: Do Not Travel” which is the same threat level as Afghanistan and North Korea. Despite this danger, more than 65,000 people, including over 16,000 children…