It's been one year since the Trump administration dramatically changed how the United States treats people seeking asylum.

For decades, migrants fleeing violence and instability in their home countries could come to the  U.S. to seek asylum and ultimately obtain legal status. But in an effort to further deter migration, the Trump administration created the “Remain in Mexico” program, which forces most asylum seekers to wait across the border while their asylum claims are pending. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen referred to the program as a “humanitarian approach” that would “end the exploitation of our generous immigration laws.” But immigration lawyers, advocates and Democratic lawmakers criticized the Trump administration for sending away asylum seekers. They argue that the policy violates asylum laws that explicitly state migrants can come to the U.S. to seek protection from harm. 

Over the past year, immigration officials have sent more than 59,000 asylum seekers – including children – to Mexico. Nearly 90% hail from Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba and El Salvador. The result is a web of makeshift shelters across the Mexican border. Some shelters are in cities that the U.S. considers among the most dangerous in the world.

Children have little access to adequate medical care and families often are living without running water. The U.S. government also has erected “tent courts” along the border for immigration court hearings that, up until December, were not open to the public.

In the last few days, several human rights organizations have released reports that quantify the toll of Remain in Mexico. Human Rights First, for instance, documented at least 816 public reports of killings, torture, kidnapping and other attacks against asylum seekers waiting in Mexico. Migrants told the American Friends Service Committee that they struggle to find U.S. attorneys to represent them because most lawyers don’t take cases in Mexico.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to extend this program through “safe third country” agreements in Honduras and El Salvador. Some migrants already have been sent to Guatemala. The ACLU sued the U.S. last month to block the government’s plan.

• Hope and despair in a Mexican shelter: Associated Press reporters embedded in a Juarez shelter called El Buen Pastor give a firsthand account of the 130 or so migrants living here as their asylum claims are pending. They are among roughly 13,000 asylum seekers waiting in Juarez. The shelter with four toilets, a chapel and spotty Wi-Fi is a temporary respite for migrants holding out for a chance at asylum in the midst of President Donald Trump’s crackdown.
• Migrant children in Mexico are crossing the border alone: Some children living with their families in overcrowded encampments as they await decisions on their asylum cases are taking their chances and crossing into the U.S. alone. 
• Asylum officers rebel against Trump policies: Several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers interviewed by the Los Angeles Times said they have to turn away nearly every asylum seeker who comes before them, based on new rules established by the Trump administration. “You’re literally sending people back to be raped and killed,” one officer said. “That’s what this is.”
   

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

You might have heard about the book “American Dirt” by now. Written by Jeanine Cummins, the novel tells the story of a bookstore owner from Mexico who decides to make the journey to the U.S. with her son after their family is gunned down at a quinceañera party. But the book’s release and support from big names such as Oprah Winfrey and Stephen King was met with outcry from the Latino community, with critics accusing Cummins, who is not of Mexican descent, of relying on old tropes and stereotypes. “American Dirt” also has fueled conversations about who has the right to write about communities of color and the lack of diversity within the publishing industry.

My colleague Aura Bogado weighed in on Twitter as well. “Context is important,” she wrote. “American Dirt was published just a few months after a white supremacist in El Paso massacred latinx people for being latinx people. We're hardly represented in news, books, films; when we are it's by white writers who pen stereotypes.”

Last week, Latino USA dug into the aftermath of the book’s release in an hourlong show that includes interviews with Cummins and a few others at the center of the controversy. Among them is writer Myriam Gurba, whose highly critical review of the book started the public reckoning. She read it during a family trip to Mexico.

“It felt insulting that I am in a country with a tremendous cultural history and a tremendous literary history and I’m reading a book with an introductory letter from a publisher that argues that this author is going to give a face to the faceless,” Gurba said. “And I’m looking around at my Mexican family and we all have faces … we have a history of representing ourselves just fine.”

Listen to the show here.
 

3 THINGS WE’RE READING

1. A series of Trump policies has granted the U.S. Border Patrol wide discretion in deciding the fate of asylum-seeking families. (ProPublica)

Under previous administrations, asylum seekers either were detained in the U.S. or released while they waited for a court date – and neither choice was up to the Border Patrol. But under the current administration, the border agency exercises more power in deciding whether asylum seekers get sent to Mexico or Guatemala or deported back to their native country. This ProPublica story follows the case of one Honduran family that was split up by border officers: The father and son were sent to Juarez, Mexico, and the mother and daughter were allowed into the U.S.  

The kicker: In a sense, David and Mirza’s family is luckier than some: They were ultimately allowed to stay and seek asylum in the U.S., a chance migrants who’ve entered more recently may never get. But the family’s well-being was threatened by their four-month split across an international border. Furthermore, the separation set off a chain of consequences that threaten their chances of ultimately winning asylum. By the time El Paso, Texas-based lawyer Taylor Levy saw a Facebook message from a California attorney asking her to track down David and Sebastian, David’s family had been apart for six weeks. Photos of Sebastian back in Honduras show a chubby, smiling boy. But when Levy met with him, she was alarmed by his condition. He was “skin and bones,” Levy remembered. And “he wouldn’t make eye contact. He was almost catatonic.”

2. After 7-year-old Jakelin Caal died in U.S. custody, officials vowed to make changes to prevent other child deaths. Only a few of those promises were kept. (Texas Monthly)

In the wake of Jakelin’s death Dec. 8, 2018, a few days after she and her father were picked up by the Border Patrol in the New Mexico desert, border officials announced secondary medical checks for children and House Democrats filed legislation that would create safeguards for minors in immigration custody. But a year later, the bill is stalled in Congress and physicians say medical care remains inadequate.

The kicker: Though advocates are alarmed about the possibility of more deaths in custody, the greatest risk to young migrants like Jakelin Caal arguably no longer lies on the U.S. side of the border. Even as Congress held hearings on the dangers of Border Patrol facilities, Trump was laying down plans to essentially scrap the traditional asylum system that many migrants rely upon. Less than two weeks after Jakelin’s death, the administration announced the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forces tens of thousands of migrants to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities while their cases are heard in the U.S. To date, of the 59,000 applicants, only 187 have been granted asylum. The result is that families like Jakelin’s are stranded in miserable refugee camps, where they face not just health risks but also rape, kidnapping, extortion and murder. 

3. The Trump administration has appointed the former leader of an anti-immigration group to oversee complaints of civil rights violations in immigrant detention centers. (BuzzFeed News) 

Julie Kirchner is the former leader of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates for restrictive immigration policies. She recently was appointed to lead the new Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. Under the new position, Kirchner will oversee civil rights complaints from immigrant detainees and address misconduct by officials at detention facilities. “That’s like letting the fox watch the hens,” one congressional staffer told BuzzFeed News.

The kicker: John Sandweg, former acting head of ICE during the Obama administration, said the move was not surprising, but potentially indicative of how the administration sees the role.

“These are the architects of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies,” he said. “It’s not a surprise they would try to build this thing in a way that makes it as less impactful as possible and seems inconsistent with the intent of Congress when they created the office. We have to wait to see what the end product is.”

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– Laura C. Morel

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.