Trump Achieved Goal of Ending Asylum Thanks to COVID-19

Friends

I posted this piece on Slate today:

President Trump has taken advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to finally achieve his goal of foreclosing asylum for migrants fleeing violence in Central America and Mexico.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (purportedly at the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) announced that it would bar entry to all migrants crossing the southern border in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Migrants arrested at the border without documents would  be quickly repatriated to their countries of origin. Simultaneously, the United States and Mexican officials mutually determined that non-essential travel between the two countries would be halted indefinitely. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for unaccompanied migrant children also announced that children were being quickly returned to their home countries on a “case by case basis,” rather than being admitted and considered for asylum in the United States. And in addition to closing the Mexican border to nonessential traffic, the United States has shut off access for anyone trying to claim asylum at the border. This includes more than 60,000 asylum seekers who have been forced to remain in Mexico under MPP (Migrant Protection Protocols) in dangerous conditions along the southern border. Now the people who were about to go before a judge to make their case – after waiting for months in crowded and unsanitary refugee camps – have been told that their hearings are postponed until at least May 1.

Click here for the entire piece.

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