I am shocked, saddened and disturbed by our government’s attacks on asylum. As a parent, I am especially shocked at how these policies affect children.
With the adoption of the Migration Protection Protocols, more commonly referred to as the Remain in Mexico Policy, the U.S. has returned nearly 70,000 asylum seekers and migrants to Mexico to await court dates that will decide if they can claim asylum in the U.S. More than 13,000 of these returnees are children, and nearly 400 of them are infants. In Mexico, these children and their families are forced to live in insecure, overcrowded environments, where acts of violence, crime, and unsanitary conditions are often reported.
This policy is inconsistent with current U.S. and international laws that give these children and families the right to seek asylum. Consequently, these blatant attacks not only violate migrants’ basic human rights, they also violate their legal rights.