Illinois State Rep. Chuy García Says “We Must Not Forget” Asylum-Seekers Forced to Mexico Under Trump Policy
January 30th 2020
Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (Charles Edward Miller)
By Gabe Ortiz
Illinois Rep. Chuy García says that he hasn’t forgotten the little boy who excitedly showed him his toy car during a visit last week to the squalid border camp for asylum-seekers in Matamoros, Mexico. “He shouldn’t be here,” García writes in a post published on the website Medium on Jan. 25. “He should be in school.” García was among the Democratic legislators who visited some of the over 2,000 asylum-seekers who have been returned to Mexico under Trump policy. There, they wait for their court dates. Some have been waiting for months now. “I talked with many people in the camp,” García said. “They told me harrowing stories of suffering. They escaped violence, and yet our government’s policy is further endangering them.”
“About 2,500 migrants, including hundreds of children, live in a crude camp on land that used to be a park but is now dirt and mud,” García writes. “There is no running water; the migrants share water from a tank. If they get sick, and many of them do, they see a doctor in a structure the size of port-a-potty. Clothes are drying on tree branches. Tents are pitched on top of each other and there is a primitive sewage system. I hear people speaking Spanish, but I also hear indigenous languages. It seems unreal—I wish it were. This is a refugee camp—a refugee camp President Trump created.”
Under the inhumane and illegal Migrant Protection Protocols policy, or Remain in Mexico, roughly 60,000 asylum-seekers have been forced out of the U.S. to Mexico, and about 2,500 of them to the Matamoros camp, García continued in his post. “Everything in Matamoros is makeshift and disorganized. Most migrants are on their own. There is no official U.S. government presence and very little official Mexican government presence.”
The lack of that presence is no doubt aiding the thugs and cartels who are profiting off of official U.S. policy by targeting these vulnerable families. Daily Kos noted that in its most recent report, Human Rights First documented over 800 instances of violence against returned asylum-seekers, including kidnapping and attempted kidnapping. “But our count is only the tip of the iceberg,” the group cautioned, “as the overwhelming majority of returned individuals have not spoken with human rights investigators or journalists. The actual number of attacks is certainly much higher.”
Legislators also visited the so-called immigration tent courts where asylum-seekers subject to Remain in Mexico have their cases heard. “Let me be clear: these are not brick-and-mortar courts,” García cautioned. “They are tents and shipping containers. If the migrants manage to get a lawyer, they only have one hour to talk to them. There is no physical judge, they are on a video screen. The environment in these court tents was chaotic. It was loud.”
To make a terrible situation even worse, “There were no translators for Spanish speakers let alone indigenous language speakers,” Garcia said. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security reportedly issued a number of recommendations regarding the Remain in Mexico policy, but as García says, there’s truly only one step to take when it comes to this deeply flawed policy: “We should end the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy which violates our country’s long standing commitment under both domestic and international law and make the U.S. a welcoming place for refugees again.”
“It’s been a week since I was in Matamoros and I can still see the little boy’s face,” García concluded. “I hope he is still smiling about his toy car. I wanted to put faces to this horrendous policy. I will not forget them. WE must not forget them. The very heart of our nation is at stake.”
Posted with permission