The organization Human Rights First has released an updated report documenting nearly 640 violent crimes that have been committed against asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait out their cases in Mexico under inhumane and illegal Trump administration policy—nearly double the number the group listed in its October report.
The findings continue to confirm that the Migrant Protection Protocols policy, or Remain in Mexico, is a humanitarian disaster. “There are at least 636 publicly reported cases of kidnapping, rape, torture, assault, and other violent attacks against asylum seekers and migrants returned to Mexico under MPP,” the report said. Nearly 140 kidnappings or attempted kidnappings have horrifically targeted children who have been returned to Mexico with their families.
“A three-year-old boy from Honduras and his parents were kidnapped after DHS returned them to Nuevo Laredo,” the report continued. “The boy’s parents were separated, and the woman reported hearing the kidnappers beat and electrocute her husband. When she last saw him lying on the ground, beaten and bleeding, he told her, ‘Love, they’re going to kill us.’ The woman and her three-year-old son were released but she does not know if her husband is alive.” This terrorism targeting vulnerable families has in part forced some desperate parents to send their kids across the border into the U.S. alone.
