Asylum-Seekers Returned to Border Cities Wracked by Violence

MEXICO CITY (AP) — People in violent Mexican border cities are voicing concern over the continuation of a U.S. policy that makes Central American emigrants seeking asylum in the United States wait south of the border.

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration can make immigrants wait in Mexico for their immigration hearings while the policy is challenged in court. On Wednesday night, Mexico’s immigration agency said 4,217 Central American asylum-seekers had already been returned through three border cities. The U.S. government has said it wants to expand the program along the entire border.

Mexico’s government did not comment after the court decision, but those closer to the issue did.

“The United States should resolve their problem there and not transfer it to us,” said Mayor Armando Cabada of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Juarez, a city wracked by homicides, particularly of women, has received 1,344 returned asylum-seekers — more than any other city — since the program started in San Diego on Jan. 29.

Mexico is one of the most violent countries in the world, recording 8,494 intentional homicides in the first three months of this year alone: more than 94 a day — an intentional killing every 15 minutes, according to figures from the federal office of public security, which is generally believed to under-report the numbers.

The 11 Central Americans who are challenging the U.S. policy say their safety has been put at risk by making them wait in Mexico for a process that could take years.

Emigrants in many Mexican border cities are easy targets for organized crime gangs that kidnap them to extort money from relatives or try to recruit them into drug and human-trafficking businesses.

Vicente Sánchez Munguía, a public administration researcher at the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana, said some border cities have suffered critical security situations for years.

“It would really expose the migrants to possible security threats,” he said. “The speed at which they process (asylum) cases in the United States could cause the number of people applying and waiting in Mexico to increase and create a critical situation.”

The policy requires asylum-seekers who have already made their applications to report to the border on the days they have court hearings. U.S. government personnel take them to court and bring them back to the border to re-enter Mexico.

Clara Long, an investigator with Human Rights Watch researching the policy, known colloquially as “remain in Mexico,” said the returned emigrants she interviewed were afraid. She interviewed one woman in Juarez this week who was raped while looking for a place to stay and another who was kidnapped and had to buy her release.

“They have no idea what to do to keep themselves safe,” she said.

Two families with young children who were returned to wait in Mexico last week were told Wednesday they had to leave the shelter where they had been staying, because they were allowed only seven days.

“They have no idea where they’re going to go and what they’re going to do,” Long said.

Some with relatives who could wire money were staying in cheap hotels, but often had to decide between paying for a room and eating, she said. Others were squatting in abandoned homes around the city.

Mexico’s foreign relations ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The Mexican government has emphasized that the policy is a unilateral U.S. measure and that Mexico will focus on the humanitarian treatment of migrants. Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was elected as a liberal, has been conspicuously silent on the issue.

The U.S. government sees the policy in part as another deterrent to immigrants seeking asylum. Whereas asylum-seekers were often released into the U.S. after passing an initial credible fear interview, especially those with children, and told to return for court hearings, the new policy returns many to wait in Mexico.

The U.S. government says it has no place to house the families from Central America’s “Northern Triangle” — Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. In April, the Border Patrol arrested 109,144 immigrants, the highest number since 2007.

Claudia Portela of the Padre Chava shelter and food kitchen in Tijuana said some emigrants in that situation have been staying there.

“It causes great uncertainty, insecurity,” Portela said.

Some can have an easier time if they get work permits in Mexico, but otherwise their lives are very precarious.

“They are going to be easy prey for organized crime,” Portela said. “They’re vulnerable.”

(Courthouse News contributed to this report.)