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Biden ends policy forcing asylum seekers to ‘stay in Mexico’ – but for 41,247 migrants it’s too late
The first group of asylum seekers allowed to move from a migrant camp in Mexico to the United States following Biden’s repeal of the “Stay in Mexico” policy arrives on February 25, 2021 in Brownsville, Texas. John Moore / Getty Images The last residents of Mexico’s Matamoros refugee camp crossed the border into the United States on March 5 to apply for asylum. The migrants, many of whom are Central Americans fleeing endemic violence, poverty and corruption, will be allowed to stay in the US while their cases move through the immigration court system. The exodus from the Matamoros camp, which previously sheltered more than 2,500 asylum seekers, is the end of a Trump-era policy called Migrant Protection Protocols. The January 2019 policy, commonly known as “Stay in Mexico”, forced 71,000 migrants detained along the U.S.-Mexico border to re-submit to Mexico and wait many months while their demands has been processed. The Trump administration claims that the Protocol on Migrant Protection ensures a ‘safe and orderly process’. But it created a refugee crisis in Mexico, whose border towns were not equipped to house, feed and protect tens of thousands of refugees. Matamoros is one of the many tent camps and Catholic shelters that serve this population. On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, the Department of Homeland Security suspended the protections for migrant protection, and by the end of February, asylum seekers were selected for COVID-19 and admitted to the United States. The change provoked great relief among the more than 15,000 migrants who were trapped in the camps in northern Mexico at that time. But the border was reopened too late for most of the 41,247 migrants whose cases were rejected while ‘staying in Mexico’. The Matamoros Camp, along the International Bridge to the United States, December 9, 2019. John Moore / Getty Images The Dangers of Waiting The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, where I investigate immigration, collect and analyze government records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. From records we obtained from the Department of Justice, it appears that 71,036 total asylum cases were filed from Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols, which lasted from January 2019 to January 2021. So far, 41,888 cases have been completed or closed. Of these, only 641 people were granted asylum or otherwise sheltered in the United States, an approval rate of 1.5%. In 2017, on the other hand, 40% of asylum seekers granted their claims by a U.S. immigration judge. Of the 41,888 cases settled under the Migrant Protection Protocols, 32,659 asylum seekers received a deportation order from an immigration judge – even though they were not physically in the United States. Most of these – 27,898 – received deportation orders because they did not appear for their immigration court hearing on the U.S. side of the border. There are many reasons why migrants waiting in Mexico may not have made it to immigration court. One is the dangers of northern Mexico, where drug cartels and organized crime prey on vulnerable migrants. Matamoros is in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where rape, torture and kidnapping are so pervasive that the U.S. State Department has an opinion on the state. The non-profit organization Human Rights First documented 1,544 cases of asylum seekers falling victim to violence while waiting in Mexico. In one case, Customs and Border Protection returned a Salvadoran family to Mexico in May 2019 despite their outspoken fears. In November 2019, the father was stabbed to death in Tijuana, leaving behind his wife and two children. “I told the judge I was scared of my children because we were in a horrible place and we did not feel safe here,” his widow told Telemundo. Another victim was a Honduran woman from the Afro-Caribbean minority Garífuna, who was abducted and raped in the city of Juárez while “staying in Mexico”. And Vice Magazine reports on David, an asylum seeker from Guatemala, who was abducted by a cartel five hours after he was sent back to Mexico in 2019. David escaped, but because the cartel had taken his paperwork, an asylum application became anything but impossible. Asylum seekers from the Matamoros refugee camp stand on December 9, 2019 in the direction of bottled water. John Moore / Getty Images Insurmountable Barriers Lack of legal advice is another reason why migrants waiting in Mexico may not have appeared at their U.S. court hearings denied asylum and issued a deportation order. Immigrants with a lawyer are twice as likely to win their case, and 99% of asylum-seeking families with an immigration lawyer attend all their immigration court hearings. But it was much harder to get an American immigration lawyer in Tamaulipas, Mexico, than in Texas in 2019. By fiscal 2020, only 14% of migrants forced to “stay in Mexico” will find an immigration attorney , compared to 80% of asylum cases for migrants in the US. Without a lawyer, communication with the U.S. court system across an international border has become an almost insurmountable barrier. Migrants, for example, told BuzzFeed News that U.S. immigration and customs enforcement often submitted incomplete or inaccurate paperwork and sometimes referred to ‘Facebook’ as the physical address of migrants. And without a lawyer, it would have been almost impossible for these migrants to receive important court notices. Termination of asylum “Stay in Mexico” has made asylum seekers almost impossible to find safety in the US. But the asylum process can be very unequal, regardless of who is sitting in the White House. Asylum outcomes are often determined just as much according to which asylum officer or immigration judge decides the case, as it is determined by merit. Immigration judges in Atlanta reject an average of 97% of asylum cases, while those in New York approve an average of 74%. A Cuban migrant discusses the next steps in his asylum process under new Biden administration rules in a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on 19 February. Paul Ratje / AFP via Getty Although El Salvador and Honduras are one of the top five countries in the world due to violent deaths, courts usually deny more than 80% of asylum cases from those countries, mainly because the US government is reluctant to prosecute gangs and domestic violence. grounds for asylum. [Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today.] Political and economic instability in Central America also drives children to flee the region. In the past two weeks, 3,200 underage minors have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border. “Stay in Mexico” has given asylum seekers a difficult choice: stay and hope to survive or lose your chance, no matter how small, for a new life. Happiness and perseverance have borne fruit for the estimated 15,000 migrants who can now pursue their asylum demands of the relative security of the United States. But for everyone else, there is no second chance. This article was published from The Conversation, a non-profit news site for sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Austin Kocher, Syracuse University. Read more: Migrating caravans begin again as pandemic deepens humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border. Migrants on the US-Mexico border must get past cartels before their long journey ends Austin Kocher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that benefits from this article, and which has no applicable commitments announced beyond their academic appointment.