Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” Agreement is a Farce

by Edward Ulrich, July 11, 2019


Donald Trump’s new “Remain in Mexico” policy has a loophole which allows people who are apprehended while crossing the border to continue to be released into the U.S. as long as they pretend that they can’t speak Spanish.






SUMMARY


Starting in December of 2018, Donald Trump established an agreement with Mexico stating that the U.S. would start returning asylum seekers who arrived at three ports of entry— at stations in San Diego and Calexico in California, and also at El Paso in Texas.  Since then asylum seekers coming to those ports have been returned to Mexico and they have been told to wait for their hearings, which might not happen for years.  Most migrants coming over the border apply for asylum wether they actually qualify or not.

On June 8th, 2019, Trump made an announcement that he reached a deal with Mexico saying that a policy of “Remain in Mexico” will now apply along the entire southern border of the U.S., where migrants who cross attempting to seek asylum will be sent back to Mexico to wait for their hearings, and with Mexico also agreeing to give them work permits.

During the month of May, 2019, U.S. authorities apprehended 140,000 people at the border, and about 8,000 asylum seekers have reportedly been brought back to Mexico over a three month period between March and May 2019.

Since May, media reports have been saying that the asylum seekers are being released into crime-filled Mexican border towns that are controlled by criminal gangs, where the migrants are reported to not be properly cared for, which is prompting lawsuits for them to be released into the United States.

However, what most media reports aren’t mentioning is the fact that the new policy of “Return to Mexico” only applies to asylum speakers who demonstrate that they can speak Spanish—  All other such migrants who can’t speak Spanish or who pretend that they can’t speak Spanish are continuing to be released into the U.S. in the same manner as they always have been.

A simple solution for those issues would be to return all such asylum seekers coming over the border no matter if they can speak Spanish or not, and then to safely relocate them to areas outside of Mexico City to wait for their hearings where they can be properly cared for and where they can find employment.



LAWSUITS


The new policy of “Remain in Mexico” has prompted lawsuits challenging it.  For example a June 27 NPR article explains that a labor union for asylum workers in the U.S. is suing to stop the program, claiming that the asylum seekers will be persecuted if they are returned to Mexico.  The union said human rights abuses, gang violence, and kidnappings remain a problem in Mexico, citing a State Department Travel advisory, and they also argued in appeals court that there is “no evidence” that the migrants coming over the border pose a security risk to American citizens or are smuggling drugs.

In April, 2019, courts attempted to block the “Remain in Mexico” policy, but a few days later the 9th Circuit Appellate Court allowed the government to resume the policy until it makes its final decision.



A DEMOCRAT CONGRESSWOMAN VERONICA ESCOBAR HAS BEEN REPORTED TO BE COACHING MIGRANTS TO PRETEND THAT THEY CAN’T SPEAK SPANISH IN ORDER FOR THEM TO GAIN ENTRY TO THE UNITED STATES


A Washington Examiner article reported on July 5, 2019 that the congresswoman Veronica Escobar had sent staff to Mexico to coach migrants that they should pretend that they don’t know how to speak Spanish in order to exploit a loophole which would ensure that they are released into the United States, although Escobar later denied the claim.

The Washington Examiner article said that it was told by The National Border Patrol Council’s El Paso chapter and several Customs and Border Protection personnel that Escobar has been sending staffers to interview thousands of migrants in the border town of Ciudad Juárez over the past few weeks to find cases where Department of Homeland Security officials “may have wrongly returned people”.

The article explains that under the “Remain in Mexico” policy, anyone returned to Mexico must be fluent in Spanish because they may have to reside in Mexico for up to five years until a U.S. federal judge decides their asylum claim.

The sources in the article claimed that Escobar’s aides were reescorting people to the port and telling the officers that the Central American people with them cannot speak Spanish, despite their having communicated it days earlier.  “What we’re hearing from management is that they’re attempting to return people, and the story was changed in Mexico, where a person who understood Spanish before now doesn’t understand — where a person who didn’t have any health issues before now has health issues,” the source said.  Reportedly Escobar’s team has sought interviews with 6,000 people who were returned last month.

Mark H. Melcalf, a former federal immigration judge, said “She’s trying to obviously say these people have been wrongly denied their claims and they’re waiting when they shouldn’t be”, and he also explained that a criminal case would exist if Escobar were found to be complicit in an effort to perpetrate a fraud.

Escobar replied to the allegatons in a Politico article saying that she has been receiving death threats because of the Washington Examiner report, and she claimed that the report is a result of “a couple of border patrol union guys” fabricating the story because they are irritated due to her “raising examples of violations of their own policy with regard to people in the asylum system.”

She then said that her office does meet with “constituents whose clients are asylum seekers who have been sent back to Mexico under Trump administration rules”, but she denied helping them to “game the system.”




A PROPER SOLUTION


Mexico has problems, but much of the country is not in as bad of shape as many people think it is.  The other day I saw a documentary on Netflix entitled “The World’s Biggest Cities”, where the second episode explains how Mexico City is becoming a more developed area.  A website for the documentary is here, including short video clips from it.

It is important that the “Remain in Mexico” policy is reformed to not have a language requirement in order for the migrants to be released back into Mexico.  It would be fair because migrants have always been released into the United States without having any language requirements, of course.

Mexico City is a very large and diverse area, it would be easily for that region to able to accommodate the people who were trying to illegally cross into the United States.  Outlying areas of the city could be designated for such people to be initially cared for and it would also be a location where they could find opportunity for employment, with just a simple train ride bringing them from the high crime areas on the border.