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Mexico–United States border crisis

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The US-Mexico border crisis refers to the policies that limit Central American migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the U.S. border. The inability to keep up with the influx of migrants throughout the years has led to overfilled and crowded facilities both in Mexico and the United States. Due to such large influxes, it has been a difficult task to try and receive all applicants in a timely matter, leading to extreme crowding on the border.

Background and event

In September 2019, the US Supreme Court allowed a new ruling to take effect that could curtail most asylum applications at the border. The ruling would demand that most asylum seekers who pass through another country first will be ineligible for asylum at the US's southern border. Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, stated the ruling was set to take effect on the week of October 8, 2019.[1] In an interview with Time Magazine, Trump criticized the Obama administration for the separations Immigration policy. He believes Mexican immigrants bring crime and drugs to the U.S. Trump has frequently clashed with so-called "sanctuary cities," where migrants are shielded from ICE by local authorities, and has tried to deny federal funding to those cities.[2] As the Trump administration stated, the policy is necessary to decrease the “fraudulent” asylum claims among the entrance of Central American families coming to the border.[3]

The agents of the Border Patrol, a quasi-military organization, are tasked primarily with intercepting drug runners and chasing smugglers. Recently, they were ordered to block and arrest hundreds of thousands of migrant families fleeing violence and extreme poverty.[4]

In several places dangers including kidnapping, murder and sexual assault threaten thousands of Central American migrants who have been clustered in Mexican border cities like Matamoros for months, blocked from asking asylum in the United States because of new restriction policies. The American government and United Nations provided free transportation to return refugees to their homes in Central America, but many others who are stuck in Matamoros said that desperation had led them to consider treacherous and potentially life-threatening border crossings — by charging across the river, climbing into hot and airless tractor-trailers driven by human smugglers, or both. In 2019 as the Border Patrol reported, the number of migrants caught hiding in tractor-trailers along the border has gone up by 40 percent this year, according to the Border Patrol.[5]

The administration has tried to stop migrants from getting into the United States at all, asking them to take a number at the border and to wait until they are called for a chance to have their asylum cases heard. As a result, the US immigration court has faced over 1 million waiting for their cases to be heard in the most recent tally, matching the highest backlog seen in the US.[6]

Reaction

The photograph of the bodies of the 25-year-old father, Mr Ramírez, and his young daughter Valeriaface, who were attempting to cross the river at the border crossing between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, has been published around the world, raising horror and shame over America's current immigration policy. They left El Salvador with a humanitarian visa in Mexico because of poverty two months earlier and had been awaiting asylum in the US. For the death of Mr. Ramírez and his daughter, Pope Francis stated that he is “profoundly saddened” and has criticized anyone who wanted to build a wall along the border, stating they are “not a Christian" in 2016.[6]

In September 2019, a complaint “demanding an immediate end” to the government turning away pregnant asylum-seekers under the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy was presented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU reported that a significant number of pregnant women who were returned to Mexico by the Department of Homeland Security have faced dangers in border towns because of a lack of medical care and unsafe living conditions.[3]

In September 2019, hundreds of protesters gathered in Southern California to illustrate their objection to the border crisis when Donald Trump was visiting a section of the US-Mexico border in San Diego to see part of the wall he has hinged his political career on building.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ "US-Mexico border apprehensions fall in September but remain high". aljazeera. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  2. ^ Dockery, Wesley. "US-Mexico Border Crisis: Young Migrants Living In Squalor, Attorneys Say". ibtimes. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
  3. ^ a b Silva, Daniella. "ACLU files complaint against government returning pregnant asylum-seekers to Mexico". nbcnews. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  4. ^ "People Actively Hate Us': Inside the Border Patrol's Morale Crisis". nytimes. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  5. ^ Dickerson, Caitlin. "Desperate Migrants on the Border: 'I Should Just Swim Across'". nytimes. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  6. ^ a b c Mindock, Clark (2019-09-18). "Trump visits US-Mexico border wall amid protests". independent. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
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