MSF: US ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy endangers lives of asylum seekers in Tamaulipas state

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calls on the US government to cease sending asylum seekers back to places where they face violence and persecution, and on the US and Mexican governments to end migration policies that endanger people’s lives.

The United States Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policy is forcing asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting legal proceedings. This policy is endangering the lives of vulnerable people trapped in cities with high rates of violence — including kidnapping, extortion, armed robbery, and sexual violence.

“It is unacceptable that …women, children, families, and men—are forced to live in dangerous conditions, exposed to violence by criminal gangs and treated inhumanely by Mexican and US authorities,” said Dr. Marcelo Fernandez, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)’s head of mission in Mexico.

MSF teams are providing medical and psychosocial care along the migration route through Mexico. Between June 2018 and July 2019, 45 percent of the 2,315 people (either migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, or returnees) treated by MSF mental health teams in Reynosa and Matamoros reported being victims of violence during their journey through Mexico.

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