Mexico Announces a Crackdown on Migration
The Mexican National Guard, founded in 2018 and subsequently used as a tool by the Trump Administration to control and curb migration from Central America, announced a “migration crackdown,” further militarizing its border with Guatemala. Such unchecked militarization will inevitably lead to an increase in human rights violations of migrants on their journey and continue to direct energy and resources away from processing and access to protection.
Title 42 Continues to Expel Migrants to Mexico
One year ago, the US “abandoned its legal responsibility to asylum-seekers using a little-known health statute called Title 42 to turn them away.” Since March of 2020, asylum seekers fleeing persecution have been denied due process. While implemented during the Trump presidency, by continuing to implement Title 42 at the US-Mexico border, the Biden Administration is solidifying a dangerous reputation that the US is a nation willing to disregard its moral and legal responsibility to asylum seekers.
KBI Joins Organizations in Calling on the Biden Administration to End Inhumane Policies on the Border
KBI joined dozens of organizations in a letter calling on President Biden to reverse the Trump Administration’s harmful policies against asylum seekers and to stop using rhetoric that bolsters the prior administrations’s inhumane messaging on U.S. refugee protections.
A Migrant is Killed by Mexican Police
Victoria Salazar Arraiza, a Salvadoran migrant, was brutally killed at the hands of Mexican police officers in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Such an atrocity in which Mexican police officers beat and abused a migrant woman to death is a result of the militarization of migration in the region and the agreements between the governments of the US and Mexico.
What should the Biden administration be doing? It’s easy to criticize but what is your plan?
Hi, Morgan. Thanks so much for your engagement. Also included in our media report was a letter that we signed on to just a few weeks ago that includes a link to recommendations made by public health experts for processing asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border in a safe, humane, and dignified manner that protects public health for all parties. You can view the letter here: https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/ngo-letter-biden-administration-recent-asylum-statements-and-actions?fbclid=IwAR0Hv5JHFinjA_NwBxSfOofFmWzq4i_68Sbpstnfx07_WWTTINV7aQhucEQ
To jump straight to the recommendations, please visit: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/letter_on_cdc_order_1.28.2021.pdf