In conjunction with the outbreak of Corona ... a human rights report documenting systematic US violations of the right of asylum seekers

Pressure is mounting on the administration of US President Joe Biden to stop using a law from the era of his predecessor, Donald Trump, that prevents asylum seekers from crossing the southern border, in light of new evidence of human rights violations and the exposure of individuals and families wanting to resort to violence on the border between the United States and Mexico.

In a report published by the American website The Intercept, writer Ryan Devereux said that a joint human rights report published on Tuesday had documented - based on more than 110 personal interviews and electronic surveys of more than 1,200 asylum seekers in the Mexican state of Baja California - what not There are fewer than 492 cases of assault or kidnapping targeting asylum seekers who were expelled under the Public Health Act of 1944 known as "Law 42", since President Joe Biden's inauguration last January.

The victims of violence are of nearly 17 nationalities from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East, and have reported being attacked, kidnapped and raped in border cities in northern Mexico in recent months.

In particular, black asylum seekers have been targeted, with more than 60% of Haitian asylum seekers in Baha reporting that they have been victims of these crimes.

In the context of a sample of more than 150 asylum seekers - who were interviewed between last March and April this year - researchers found that none of them were given an opportunity to submit an asylum application before being expelled from the United States without prior notice.

Legacy of violations

According to some human rights defenders of the "Lawyers Committee for Human Rights" (Al Otro Lado), the report indicated that the Biden administration inherited an asylum system destroyed by Donald Trump, but also indicated that these challenges do not justify the squalid conditions and mistreatment that are still being sought. Asylum they face.

The writer pointed out that Law 42 - a vague law for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the 1940s - was reactivated last spring with the emergence of the Corona pandemic and under pressure from immigration advisor Stephen Miller, in complete disregard for objections made by public health professionals.

According to both the Trump and Biden administrations, this law allows border guard officials to expel individuals and families they find on US soil quickly without organizing a hearing, even if they are trying to exercise their right to seek asylum, in addition to preventing most people from seeking asylum at entry points.

Hundreds of thousands of expulsions

The writer mentioned that the Customs and Border Protection Authority, which supervises border control, carried out more than 630,000 expulsions during the past year.

The Intercept also reported - in a detailed investigation published at the end of last week - that border agents took advantage of Law 42 to arrest asylum-seekers in Mexican border towns in the middle of the night, a practice that has been largely prohibited for years under the agreements concluded between The United States and Mexico.

In this context, the law is subject to challenge in the courts, with critics arguing that what was introduced as a public health measure is actually being used as a way to deny asylum seekers their rights under domestic and international law.

"With the implementation of Law 42, our staff and volunteers have increasingly received reports from asylum seekers in Tijuana, who have been exposed," Nicole Ramos, director of the El Otro Lado project on border rights, told reporters on Tuesday Either they or their family members were kidnapped by organized crime and held for ransom.

 Children are deported

Ramos added that while the United States was said to have stopped deporting unaccompanied children in November - after the Trump administration carried out at least 13,000 such operations - this decision did not include unaccompanied Mexican children.

In addition to the expulsions to Mexico, Law 42 has been used to send 27 flights to Haiti since last February, carrying more than 1,400 adults, children and asylum seekers to live in precarious and violent conditions.

The writer referred to the case of Muhammad, an East African asylum seeker who arrived in Tijuana with his family one month before the enforcement of Law 42 and this month he obtained the right to enter the United States, and he described his status as an asylum seeker with a black complexion in a foreign city where violent targeting and extortion are rooted For immigrants, adding that he was also subjected to extortion by the police on 3 separate occasions.

And earlier this year, Mohamed became volunteer at a camp for asylum seekers hoping to get a chance to present his case in the United States.

"These people are not criminals. They are immigrants. They are human beings who sleep on the streets in the sun and rain, just to fulfill their dream of seeking asylum in the United States," he explained.

Law 42

Under "Law 42", new provisions are created to implement immigration laws;

Alexandra Miller, the administrative attorney for the Frontier Work Team at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, told reporters of the emergence of what defenders call "Law 42 Deferred," situations where Law 42 is used to expel individuals held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the United States rather than At the border.

“Over the past five months, about 100 people have been in ICE custody, unable to take the necessary legal procedures, and they will have limited access to lawyers, and will eventually be deported to their home country,” Miller said. Threat to them. "

The human rights report was issued just one day after a bilateral coalition of 92 Mexican and American academics issued a series of recommendations to their governments in order to "avoid a humanitarian crisis" at the border. At the top of the researchers' list was the phasing out of "Law 42" and the beginning of the preparation. To receive families requesting asylum.

These academics have indicated a pattern in recent weeks of families choosing to separate from their children after learning that the United States still agreed to receive unaccompanied children.

They argued that allowing families to seek asylum together "would reduce the need for facilities for unaccompanied minors, as families could travel to their final destinations upon release and would be in need of less immediate support."

Housing conditions

Experts specializing in border and immigration affairs called for the expansion of the use of so-called filtering sites, similar to hotels, as a precaution to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, and they indicated that "the establishment of filtering sites or the liquidation hotel is an effective solution to control the epidemic before transporting migrants to places. Others, such as shelters where they receive support. "

The researchers added that the filtering sites could be used to deliver vaccines in one go, and said that "more dignified conditions of detention for unaccompanied children and adolescents and families should be created on the American side during their treatment and transport to their final destination."

Experts said that accepting asylum seekers responsibly and aware of the danger of the virus is not strange, pointing to the recent acceptance of individuals who have been registered in the Trump administration's "stay in Mexico" program as a "organized, effective, safe," and successful model, but the Trump program has forced more than 71,000 students They resorted to waiting until the conclusion of their cases in Mexico, which led to widespread violence and human rights violations against them.

Biden canceled the infamous program as soon as he became president, and his administration has gone ahead with the gradual reception of individuals previously enrolled in the system.

One of the things the US and Mexican governments should stop doing is to rely on Mexican security forces, which have a long record of human rights violations and corruption, to intercept asylum seekers on the northern border, according to the US newspaper, border and immigration researchers said.

Just two days after Biden was inaugurated, the Mexican special operations team - trained by the United States - killed 19 immigrants in northern Mexico.

Last month, a Mexican soldier shot and killed an unarmed migrant from Guatemala in southern Mexico.

Less than two weeks later, the Biden administration announced that it had entered into agreements with the governments of Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to deploy thousands of troops on its borders.

The researchers said, "There is a strong relationship between violence against immigrants, whether kidnapping, extortion or even massacre in light of increased enforcement of immigration laws in Mexico, and for this reason, mass detention will push people to hide in dangerous and risky conditions, and that will have greater human costs."