Three times this winter a Honduran woman named Alma went to U.S. officials at the border between Reynosa, Mexico, and Hidalgo, Texas, to ask for asylum for herself and her three children. She had fled Honduras because her other child had been killed by gang members, and she had brought documentation to prove it, but three times she was told by U.S. Customs and Border Protection that she would have to wait in Mexico. In February, the family was kidnapped.
Alma’s is one of the cases included in a report released today by Human Rights First, which alleges that officials at the U.S.-Mexico border have been routinely and illegally turning away asylum seekers. The report provides dozens of examples of officials providing false information about the law, asking misleading questions or pressuring people to take back statements about fearing persecution, and frustrating lawyers who try to facilitate claims.
Human Rights First, together with other groups working at the border, has documented 125 cases since November 2016 where individuals or families were wrongly denied the chance to claim asylum. Although 8,000 people were referred to the asylum process nationwide during the same time, the report states that many abuses probably go unreported due to dangerous conditions, lack of legal counsel along the border, and little oversight of CBP officials as they receive and process asylum seekers’ claims.
Donald Trump’s election seems to have empowered some officials to fuel a malicious rumor mill: One Central American was told by an officer in South Texas, “Trump says we don’t have to let you in,” according to the report. In recent months, Cubans reported being told, “the law has changed, you have to go back,” and that asylum from Cuba “does not exist anymore. To go to the United States, you have to get a visa from a consulate.” (Before leaving office, Barack Obama did lift a policy that gave Cubans automatic parole on arrival in the United States, but Cubans are still eligible to apply for asylum like any other nationality.) Mexican immigration officials have also said to local advocates, “Stop lying to people, CBP told us they are not giving asylum in the United States anymore.”
In a statement, a CBP spokesperson said that “CBP has not changed any policies affecting asylum procedures” and that “as an agency CBP does not tolerate any kind of abuse.”
The statement outlined the asylum process as it is supposed to work:
If an officer or agent encounters a U.S.-bound migrant without legal papers and the person expresses fear of being returned to his/her home country, our officers processes them for an interview with an asylum officer. … CBP officers are not authorized to determine or evaluate the validity of the fear expressed. The applicant does not have to specifically request asylum, they simply must express fear of being returned to their country.
If the asylum officer, from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, decides that their fear is credible, the petitioner has a right to request asylum from a judge. They can stay in the United States, often not in immigration detention, during those proceedings.
Even before the election, however, there were problems: Lawyers and advocacy groups have documented similar complaints from earlier last year, and the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in a report based on research from 2012 to 2015, found “outright skepticism, if not hostility, toward asylum claims” among some CBP officers.
In Tijuana last summer, responding to a sharp increase in arrivals from Haiti, CBP began working with Mexican immigration officials to streamline asylum claims by creating an appointment system. But that fix, according to the report, has led to a situation where CBP won’t see people without an appointment — and Mexican officials are refusing to give out those appointments. And for Mexicans looking for protection in the United States from cartels and corrupt authorities, it could mean they find themselves referred back to the very government they are fleeing.
The report comes down hard on Mexico, saying that its own asylum system is woefully understaffed and “riddled with deficiencies,” and that authorities can offer little protection to vulnerable refugees. Many of the asylum seekers coming through Mexico are refugees from gang violence or political persecution in the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and their abusers’ networks can follow them to Mexico. It’s also difficult for Central Americans stuck without documents to get work, and they are vulnerable to kidnapping and other abuse by cartels and traffickers. The report also notes that denying asylum can push refugees to give up on official channels and attempt more remote and dangerous unauthorized crossings.
Top photo: Central American immigrants wait to be transported after turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents on December 8, 2015, near Rio Grande City, Texas.
let the asylum seekers have freedom they want freedom.
Earth has about 7+ billion people, and I would guess people in Africa, China, India and South America would love to love to live in the US for whatever reason.
Bottom line is, we simply cannot take everyone. We can barely take care of ourselves and if ICE rejects people, there is nothing wrong with that. It’s our house and we decide who can come in.
Yes, it sucks, but it is our house and we have decided to put a lid on it.
Then we have to stop going beyond our borders and knocking down other people’s houses!
I thought asylum was just for persecution. If we give asylum to everyone who is afraid of the local gang, well that’s ridiculous and not what I remember the intent of the law was. If the gang is after them, they should to their local police, or move to a different place within their country. And no, we can’t take the entire population of Honduras or El Salvador.
Do you agree or not agree that the conditions of the governments in Central American have much to do with manipulations of US corporations and US military and covert interference with those governments? If yes, then what is this nation’s responsibility to the people damaged? And if no, then you might look at the history of the region, before, but including Smedley Butler’s revelations, the beginning of the 20th century — it has only gotten worse since he spoke his truth.
An immigration lawyer told me the quickest way to find yourself out of the country is to apply for political asylum.
On refugees:
“No-one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark… No-one puts their child in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.”
Warsan Shire…Somali Poet
That was used for the charity Help Is Coming, a charity to help those fleeing their war torn countries, by water, supported by Benedict Cumberbatch
Food for thought.
Why would Cubans be seeking asylum? That’s a bit baffling ..unless they were working w USAID.
Good thing there are something like 160 more countries for these people to get asylum from while America works out some issues with its system and processing.
The US Government is very brazen to prevent people escaping terrorism from entering the country, while continuing to terrorize other nations and territories with our rogue military campaigns, aka The War Economy.
wallstreet and their whores got everything bassackwords.
There is no legal requirement that the US take any foreigners in for any reason. We do not need any more immigrants. Our population is large enough and our unemployed are large enough to do everything we need including filling all the unfilled jobs.
Trump is right. There is no law requiring that the US let foreigners in for any reason, and we shouldn’t. We do not need any more immigrants of any kind. This is not the 1930s anymore.
how does mexico conquer the US?
Do the same as Britain did to China. Flood the country with drugs to capture money and souls. Occupy the country for political power. It really is that simple.
Mexico is a narco state. If we do not turn the clock back on the invasion, your sons and daughters future will be doubly sabotaged; first by wallstreet, second by mexican citizens.
just as israel murders palestinians to steal land under the pretense of self defence, mexico allows and provides transport, aid and comfort to their citizens who invade the US.
GRUPOS BETA
FACT: The gov of mexico allows trainloads of invaders from south to north.
FACT: mexico provides NO border control beyond manned roadways just south of US manned roadways.
FACT: an average of 1,000,000 invaders have crossed into the US each year since 1975.
FACT: the invaders in the US still fly the mexican flag and have mexican citizenship
FACT: mexico is not a real democracy and is more tribally ruled
FACT: mexican culture is quite the opposite of US culture and they dont mix well which is why americans take vacations in siesta land
FACT: mexico, like israel and their yinon plan, has an agenda to reclaim land lost to american conquerors in the 1800’s.
FACT: mexican interests now dominate a majority of the US southwest.
FACT: the drug cartel economy is approaching 20% of the mexican GDP.
I understand how you feel. Much of the Southwest is dependent on trade with Mexico. I notice many shopping centers have MX state license plates.
So things are improving south of the border.
That being said, selfishly, I do miss the days when you could get workers from South of the border..who were happy with well more than minimum wage here, did a good job and were nice to have around.
Now you get people to cut the trees and they want a ridiculous amount of money and are usually rather rude and get upset if they break a sweat.
There are no longer people coming around looking for work. The last person I knew that worked here, left for work in Baja..better economy for a construction worker …especially a bi lingual one.
I hear of farmers that are letting their crops die in the fields.
Please remember I did say selfishly…
On the other side, I recall going to an emergency room and self paying, and I knew the people in the next cubicle weren’t having to pay what I did..and yes I was a bit resentful..until I appreciated the fact that I don’t qualify for what help they had…though I may soon.
My point is things have changed here..many Americans aren’t ok with migrant workers.
Lastly, I notice cities that are tolerant of immigrants seem to be doing better financially.
That may be a result of corporate greed, though…it is still money spent in the community.
So everyone can slam me now..I can take it!
I notice many shopping centers have MX state license plates.
Cars with MX state’s license plates.
Damn nice cars, too.
Maybe we should worry more when no one wants to come here. :/
TMI…apologies.
Are Hispanic US citizens still being deported to Mexico and elsewhere? Keep in mind that when someone is deported, ICE takes away their money and ID’s. When they go back to their home country, they’re essentially stateless. You’re a Mexican citizen? How can you prove that with no ID of any kind? You can’t.
It still happens.
I do not want illegals in my country; however, even more objectionable then having illegals flooding my nation and the labor pool is the fact that the conservative ruling power elite are responsible for this illegal immigration by intentionally destroying the economies of the nations these illegals come from with one sided trade agreements and monetary polices, by hiring these illegals once they are here, by using illegal immigration to push down wages for American workers, to establish an enormous (20 million plus) group of low paid workers who do not receive health benefits, raises, workers comp, social security, and will not report employers for abuse. Instead of persecuting the victims of conservative exploitation policy we should be arresting every person who hires illegals plus we should have effective laws and enforcement that does not allow this type of exploitation in the first place. I have no hope that this situation will be fixed in any moral was as my nation and it’s conservative rulers will always put profit before people.
These are progressive leftists who are pushing open borders and liberalization of H-1B and H-2B. Conservatives Sessions (as U.S. Senator) and Grassley have been trying to stop those abuses. Leftists are trashing economies from Venezuela to the DPRK. Routine unemployment riots from London’s Brixton section, to Patis, to Stockholm.
It’s Hillary voters who–by definition–run the companies that benefit from Democratci immigration policy. They don’t push immigration reform and porous borders and other progressive leftist claptrap that allows them to hire illegals and then vote for anybody other than the Democrats who espouse it.
You’re under a form of mind control. Maybe you’re rooting for the wrong side.
are the big silicon valley tech companies and places like Mar A Lago progressive leftists???
Which big Silicon Valley tech company exec beside Thiel isn’t a progressive leftist Hillary voter? And what do you have against the tech companies that provide the means for you to gain access to a network with a device that enables you to write posts like that?
And what do you have against private property?
Yes, the big silicon valley tech companies are overwhelmingly leftist, and they want to replace YOU with cheap foreign labor.
No, globalist, Soros-aligned Intercept. We’re not serfs of boundaryless co-mingled, interchangeable, gray goo whose wages have been averaged down in a high-cost-of-living hemisphere. At least not yet. We’re pushing back.
These economic greed migrant morons who are being intercepted at the border are coming with cash in hand that got them this far. So let them stay put in the low COL places they emerged from.
It’s our law. We finally have a president that enforces our immigration laws.
Yes, why should immigrition laws be broken with impunity and no penalty?
This is just the preparation for the beginning…. The synergies of climate disruption, ecological changes and economic responses, along with the immediate effects of the resulting macro and micro political tyrannies, are going to have more and more people moving for more and more pressing reasons. The anger and the fear that is coming…you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Hearts are hardening; they will get harder.
Wow, Cora Currier.
More good news about our exceptional country.
Which psychopaths hire/d the psychopaths in CPB?
A portion of Trumps admin displays sociopathic characteristics.
Take Kim out already! Let’s move on
US Provocation and North Korea: Pretext for War with China
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2137
That’s a moronic comparison. China isn’t a backward, bellicose, remotely as oppressive, hermit state that’s issuing nuclear threats, and that can be prevented at this stage from building that capacity beyond the threshold to make a difference.
Where do Americans go to seek asylum, Canada, Cuba? They can go to hell most likely.
You are right. Americans are victims as well of decades of disastrous U.S. foreign policy.
Gotta wonder why BOA, walmart, Subway etal run ads in spagnol. Not much of an incentive to learn english!
Not a word of this will be on television.
Love ya?
“Not a word of this will be on television.”
Of course it won’t. It’s anecdotal but real lives are at risk. My heart dropped when I read the entire family was kidnapped. I wasn’t expecting such direct causality.
Our greatest strengths as a nation are being slowly destroyed. We will destroy ourselves and if any outside force wants to push us over the edge, no bullets need be fired. They can just target our flimsy social structure. There are just enough psychopaths in our culture to create havoc and they can be easily manipulated.
with all due respect and i LOVE The Intercept. but on the eve when US Congress is about to take away healthcare of over 20 millions vulnerable Americans, can we have a report on ACA? please? i mean, we HAVE TO take care of OUR OWN people FIRST before helping people from outside our borders and the world. am i being unreasonable? let’s fix our OWN problems first.
Alternative solution: stop spending insane amounts of money and energy (and leaving a wake of charred flesh and rivers of blood) attempting to maintain our Planetary Empire and fix both problems at once, along with many others, and have money in the bank.
The tRumpublican assault on the (deeply defective) ACA is being widely covered in other media. TI can’t and shouldn’t try to provide blanket reporting on every issue.
Own people, you mean your family or your town or the whole USA? Maybe all the killing and abusing you do to each other is just a family problem. I would love to see that you take care of your self and let the rest of the world do the same. Maybe you should start there.
What the House does is not necessarily what the Senate will do.
We, the “greatest” and “most exceptional” country in the world can afford to do both.
If we curtailed our imperialism, there would be plenty of money to take care of many of our own people and issues, but there is no desire, let alone political will. Let’s face the reality, jay, the swamp denizens really don’t give a s**t.
And, unfortunately, most of the population is generally too stupid to know this. You can tell this by decades of polling about civic ignorance and participation, and the fact that people still think Repeal and Replace is the answer to fixing the “government takeover” of healthcare.
“Let’s fix our own problems first”..
Well, “We” did , have “fix/ed”our own problems first..
Depends on when , what problems were created and fixed..
Ever heard the old cliches, one thing leads to another, what goes around comes around?
After effects, side effects, in this case relate to immigration on the southern USA border and the changing laws..residual effects of USA induced high interest rates on petro-dollars during the fuel glut of the late 80’s-early 90’s ..recycled and lent to Mexico causing the Mexican Peso crisis in the early 1990’s followed by the USA bailing them out, followed by NAFTA, ..followed by stricter immigration laws..making it more difficult for immigrants workers to regularly enter the USA and return to their home countries..
Unless you grow your own vegetables and pick your own fruit and mow your own lawn and slaughter your own meat, then I can understand why you think this is someone else’s problem.
These “asylum seeker” stories are the crem de le crem the media attention, the emotional, heartbreaking stories..but the barebones foundation of agribusiness in this country relies on these immigrants..
Well agribiz can manup.
Judging by the comments many people are only too happy to paint all the refugees as “economic migrants” (i.e. someone who seeks relocation in pursuit of better conditions / wages etc). Makes me think that these discussions are never about weeding out the cheats but that racism is really at play here. Sad!
Isn’t this awful and inhuman? Trump is betraying every principle of humanitarian protection of refugees! This is a complete reversal of American values! Look at this:
Except, ha ha, that was the Obama White House in 2014, that was.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-idUSKBN0FK29N20140715
After the Obama Administration sponsored a right-wing coup in Honduras, with the active participation of Hillary Clinton, refugees from Honduras were treated the same way that the Reagan administration treated El Salvadoran refugees in the 1980s – ship them right back to the death squads they were fleeing from.
So Trump is merely continuing the Obama policy on immigration and refugees, which was actually quite a bit more punitive than the GW Bush policy on immigration and refugees. Trump and Obama seem to agree on this: undocumented migrants are a source of cheap labor for domestic jobs that can’t be outsourced abroad (agriculture, construction, hotel & restaurant, baggage handling, etc.) but in order to keep their wages low, they must be routinely persecuted so they don’t try to form unions or demand basic rights. This has the additional benefit of keeping wages low for documented migrants and U.S. working-class citizens – hence maximizing profit margins for billionaires on Wall Street.
This of course is not class warfare; class warfare is a term only applicable when poor and middle-class citizens protest against the wealthy 1% who are screwing them over, never the other way around.
True, but it 1st takes a Honduran or whatever to traitor and kill and sell out his own people.
Not the kind of comments I would expect on the Intercept!
Yes countries and people are responsible for their own faith, but the US foreign policy has a lot to do with what is happening in South America and many other places in the world today.
Having said that, to deny people desperate for their lives is just low!
Many western European countries treat refugees with dignity, not perfect but much better than the attitudes we are experiencing here.
I don’t know about these “western European countries” that supposedly are nice to refugees.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/22/pope-likens-migrant-holding-centres-concentration-camps/
But it is clearly true that if we wanted to cut down on the stream of refugees across international borders, then we would end the covert and military regime change games (in Libya and Syria and Honduras, for example) as well as shut down the neoliberal economic destruction programs (like NAFTA). Those are the main immediate driving forces behind the global refugee crisis, although in the long term, climate change and rising sea levels will exacerbate these problems.
And global, finance-industrial capitalism in general.
Karan’s sense that we model our treatment of refugees after the worst European practices, rather than the best, is correct. And so is Pope Francis.
Living creatures, faced with untenable living conditions, migrate if they can. Always have, always will. How we choose to deal with the problem, as human living creatures, reveals much about our (alleged?) humanity.
PopeFrancis requests citizens of the Vatican all go to Rome,not to the US, part of solution.
yes, companies in the U.S. are always telling Americans that if they aren’t earning enough or can’t find a good job to go somewhere else, and quit being a whining slug about their profit-friendly, employee-unfriendly business practices.
These days any whore from the south of the border is a victim worthy of media attention.
You are a vile, despicable asshole.
Go fix Mexico if yer so bothered by it. Leave us US-ians the fuck out of it.
Very true!!
“You [Tony] are a vile, despicable asshole.”
feels good to get that out;
and it keeps Pedinska’s comment about no name-calling true.
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I see we have a lot of yammering and whining about my perfectly accurate description of the poster of the outrageously shameful and disgusting comment, but nothing about that comment itself.
One could almost imagine that vile despicability enjoys approval among a certain element of commenters here.
I agree with you Doug Salzmann, it is vile and despicable name calling to call an asylum seeker “a whore from the south”.
That is truly a horrible thing to say, imo.
Why not spend the billions that we now do on the Merida Initiative, to fight the drug wars err spend lots of money on intel & weapons co’s.
Just calling people “whores” isn’t very constructive. Just sayin..
“The applicant does not have to specifically request asylum, they simply must express fear of being returned to their country.”
I wonder how well that would go down , if I tried to cross – illegally – the border of Mexico, without a passport or a driver’s license?
Claiming asylum is not “crossing illegally.” Rather, it is a human right, established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and codified in international law in the 1951 Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Optional Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees and other conventions and treaties to which the US is a party.
In case you and your fellow heartless xenophobes have forgotten the status of such treaties under our Constitution, I refer you to Article VI, Clause2 (the “Supremacy Clause”):
Emphasis added (because you need it).
Timo, that sort of logic and comparison will get you nowhere in these forums. These commentaries are merely a vehicle for people such as Mr . salzmann and a few other regulars to spew out all the resentments and hostility that they have for anything or anyone that has a different opinion than they do in a safe and cowardly manner. If you use the authors own statistics and do the math, only 1.5% of seekers were denied, hardly a reason to get exited about in the grand scheme of things. Many in these forums more or less despise western culture and especially the USA in particular. Because the USA falls short in their expectations compared to some imagined Utopia , they feel they have the justification to hurl insults and other perjoritives towards people that they disagree with. I see you have already been called a Xenophobe….more epithets will be coming your way soon. Good luck!
I post in my own name and I’m easy to find. Who are the cowards?
That may be a good example of why some want a better life..in the U.S. .
oh good.
real tired of splitting my pie a thousand ways.
and i am on to the “wallstreet GROWTH (as in population up wages down)” scam.
close the borders, remove the illegals, live well.
then and only then we will have a model worth emulating.
Hah. Net immigration on the mexican border is in fact below zero as it is, and illegals contribute more than they get to take out of your precious pie.
Yes, i am sure the author does not open his door and invite in all those who knock. This will allow people to coorect what they need to do at home.