Asylum seekers from Mexico are afraid to wait in Mexico while their cases are being examined in the US. A new policy enforces immigrants to wait in their home country before entering the US. The policy was introduced to families from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Children traveling alone are exempt from this policy. Claims say that the US administration is doing this to discourage immigrants from coming here and to reduce immigration court backlog of more than 800,000 cases.
The article was mainly about how the Department of Homeland Security is fighting this new policy by advocating for the needs of asylum seekers. Lawyers are doing all that they can to fight to allow refugees to stay here until their cases are resolved. Refugees say that they fear to return to their homelands because of the danger related to race, religion, political beliefs, nationality, or membership in a particular social group.
Asylum seekers are being forced to wait in unsafe environments and have a difficult time getting legal advice while waiting in Mexico. In a report, Tijuana, a Mexican city directly across the border from San Diego, there were more than 2,500 homicides last year.
This policy is harmful to refugees who are in danger in their home country. Forcing them to go back while they wait for approval to enter the US can take a long time. The one thing that I wish this article went more into detail about is why refugees were afraid to go back to their countries. Some believe that this policy change was a unilateral move by the trump administration.
Source:
March 2019. Asylum seekers say they fear return to Mexico under new US policy. Aljazeera. Retrieved from aljazeera.com/…/asylum-seekers-fear-return-mexico-policy-190320152131826.