A dangerous game of waiting
What the reinstatement of the Migrant Protection Protocols means for Migrants, Mexico, and the US
Alarm bells are ringing across migrant advocacy and protection groups as the Biden Administration grapples with the possible reinstatement of the contentious Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)—otherwise known as the “remain in Mexico” policy.
Established by the former Trump Administration in 2019, MPP requires persons seeking admittance and/or asylum in the US at the border to wait out their US immigration case processing in Mexico, with the exception of specific case exemptions. President Biden vowed to end MPP in his first days in office and officially scrapped the policy back in June. However, a lawsuit filed by Texas and Missouri has challenged Biden’s actions and the Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of reinstituting the policy.
Given the dynamic conditions at the border, MPP would only serve to limit the response capabilities of the Administration and its Mexican counterparts and worsen already drastic conditions for asylum-seekers and migrants suspended in limbo.
MPP then and now
Since its inception, MPP sent an estimated 71,000 asylum-seekers and migrants back to Mexico where they faced the threat of dangerous conditions that included destitution and exploitative criminal activity. In fact, recent statistics from Human Rights First show 1,544 reports describing targeted acts of violence against those sent to Mexico under the policy.
The extreme and violent conditions migrants and asylum-seekers face while waiting are compounded by food insecurity, lack of employment opportunities, and homelessness. For some, asylum petitions can last years in processing and consequentially, the Texas Tribune reports “many migrants have tried to illegally cross the border rather than wait.”
Recent footage from the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas presents just a small picture of the global migration crisis that continues to manifest along the US border and makes a case for challenging the efficacy of policies like the MPP.
What began as a makeshift shelter for a few thousand waiting migrants under the Texas bridge, quickly swelled to an estimated 15,000 persons in the span of one week. The majority of these migrants are from Haiti, representing one of two groups: 1) those who fled to South America after the 2010 earthquake and are now trying to escape impoverishment there, and 2) those Haitians fleeing more recent civil unrest and natural disaster at home.
Conditions under the bridge are characterized by persistent squalor as basic necessities and options remain limited for migrants. With an indefinite wait time for pending immigration cases, migrants are forced to look at various means of survival and in doing so, regularly cross the Rio Grande into Mexican border towns in search of food, work, and other vital means.
Resource scarcity combined with exploitative criminal activity further threaten migrants’ physical security as they frequent Mexican border towns. As the Del Rio case demonstrates, remaining in Mexico can have grim consequences for migrants’ well-being and does not represent a viable solution for those awaiting their pending US immigration cases nor for the thousands more that continue to arrive en masse.
The reality on the ground
The migration crisis at hand continues to present seemingly insurmountable challenges for the US and Mexico alike. In the first phase of MPP, Mexico granted humanitarian visas to the migrants sent back by the US; however, many of these visa-holders ended up in dangerous regions of the country and were subjected to violence by the cartels. These scenes are playing out once again in places like Reynosa, a border city in northern Mexico which has become home to another migrant camp for 2,000 people awaiting admittance and/or asylum to the US.
Mexican authorities have already expressed concerns of limited capacities and resources to care for US-bound migrants throughout their extended case processing times. On top of the potential for MPP stalling more migrants in-country, Mexico faces mounting pressure to process those seeking asylum in its own country from points along the northern and southern borders.
While President Biden is bound by legal obligation to reinstate MPP, Mexico is not required to host non-citizens awaiting US immigration processing. Nevertheless, in the spirit of reciprocity and maintaining solid relations between countries, sources from ABC News report confidence in Mexico’s cooperation moving forward with the policy. Nonprofit organizations working to protect and care for US-bound migrants have made urgent calls for greater assistance in the face of MPP because the surge of migrants to Mexico from either border will continue to overwhelm and overstretch available resources and personnel.
Now charged with carrying out a policy that it opposes, the Biden Administration must move forward with a plan to reinstate MPP in a manner that accounts for the security of migrants and the fair responsibility-sharing arrangement with Mexico. How this arrangement will look in action remains to be seen as both countries are currently collaborating over the technical implementation of the policy.
Amidst this top-bottom political process, migrants continue to make the perilous journey to the US-Mexico border only to be met with further uncertainly upon arrival. Caught in the middle of the reinstatement of MPP, Mexico’s strained capacity, slow US immigration processing times, and extremely volatile and dangerous living conditions, these migrants and asylum-seekers are forced to play the most dangerous game of all— waiting.
