Lee Goodman for BuzzFlash: Asylum Seekers Forced Back Into Mexico by Draconian Trump Policies Face Flooding and Coronavirus in Ramshackle Matamoros Encampment

August 3rd 2020

USA/Mexico Border (Gordon Hyde)

By Lee Goodman

Two years ago, large numbers of people began arriving at our border with Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. They were mostly fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries in Central America and elsewhere. Because the Trump administration changed the prior policy of allowing these refugees to wait in the U.S. while their cases were processed in our immigration courts, they began living on the streets in Mexico at border crossings.

One of the largest of these unofficial refugee camps grew in Matamoros, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. At first, the asylum seekers lived under tarps. Then some tents appeared. Some of the people in Matamoros didn't like that the refugees were there, so local officials moved the tents into a nearby park, where they were less visible. The problem for the refugees was that the park was in a floodplain on the river side of a levee that had been built to protect Matamoros. Everyone knew that when the seasonal rains came, the Rio Bravo (aka Rio Grande) river would swell and the refugees could be trapped between the levee and the rising waters.  That's where they are today. As the river inches over its banks, the encampment is being submerged by floodwaters. Mud is everywhere. Tents are collapsing. People are in danger.

So far only part of the camp is under water. The people who live in the camp stand watch day and night to monitor the river, ready to raise an alarm, grab their few belongings, and flee for their lives. They stay in the camp because they don't trust the offers that the Mexican government has made to relocate them -- fearing that they may end up being deported or removed to distant locations, making their attempt at entering the U.S. impossible.

Water isn't the only thing endangering the nearly 1,000 people who remain in the camp. (Previously there were nearly 2,500, but many have given up their hopes of getting into the U.S. and have either returned to the countries they fled or have moved elsewhere.) The Coronavirus is also there. Before the rains, a tent had been erected to isolate people who might have the virus. Because of the rain and flooding, that tent is no longer standing. There is no medical facility in the camp that can even minimally deal with the virus, and the hospitals in the region are all full beyond capacity. People die waiting in line to get in.

In the early days of the Trump administration and during prior administrations, asylum seekers who needed medical care could come into the U.S. to get it. Now, no one gets in. The Trump administration has closed the immigration courts and has stopped processing asylum applications. It is summarily removing people from the U.S. without giving them the opportunity to make their cases as the law gives them a right to do.

With neither the U.S. or the Mexican government helping them, the refugees in Matamoros have relied upon volunteers from the U.S. for food, tents, clothing, and just about everything they need to stay alive. The effort has been phenomenal, but the coronavirus travel bans have sharply curtailed the volunteers' ability to help. It is also harder for reporters to get to the camp, so the situation is barely being covered in the media. Only a trickle of information comes, from people living in the camp, volunteers, and local reporters. The administration refuses to provide information about what it is doing. The cacophony of craziness from Trump and the urgency of the pandemic have kept the situation at the border out of the news.

So, while Americans debate whether to send their children to school, which sporting events should be held, and whether to rename bridges and remove monuments, non-Americans reluctantly confront the reality that America is willing to let them perish on the banks of a cresting river rather than allow them to seek a better life alongside the rest of us. Many of us are counting the days until the election allows us to change the course we are on. At the river, existence itself is not counted in days but measured in inches of water.

Lee Goodman is a volunteer with Peaceful Communities (www.PeacefulCommunities.org) and Witness At the Border (www.WitnessAtTheBorder.org), all-volunteer organizations that are working to end immigrant detention and restore asylum.