Year-old Us-mexico migration pact a ‘humanitarian disaster,’ groups allege

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — A little more than a year ago, border officials struggled to process the thousands of asylum seekers arriving daily while fending off allegations of abuses at overcrowded detention centers.

Then came what Trump administration officials called one of their “game changers” amid the migrant surge: an enforcement deal with Mexico sealed under threat of heavy tariffs.

Mexico deployed troops to its southern and northern borders, agreed to receive more foreigners sent over by the United States under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program and cracked down on humansmuggling networks.

The migrant caravans vanished, the number of migrants presenting themselves at U.S. ports of entry plummeted and detention centers were no longer bursting at the seams.but what Department of Homeland Security officials see as an unfettered success story, immigration activists and some scholars say the U.s.mexico immigration deal merely pushed the humanitarian crisis south of the border.

“I think it’s been a failure.

What it has (brought) is abuse and violation of human rights of immigrants both in Mexico and the United States,” said Fernando Garcia, executive director of El Paso’s Border Network for Human Rights. “It’s very unfortunate that Mexico accepted doing the dirty job of (enforcing) the U.S. immigration policies.”

Garcia, who visited the Mexico-guatemala border shortly after the June 7, 2019, binational agreement was implemented, said he saw checkpoints, army patrols, overcrowded detention centers and a certain xenophobia toward the migrants.

The MPP program has sent nearly 65,000 asylum seekers to wait out in Mexico asylum hearings in the United States. Activists have long complained that exposes them to crime in cities like Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, where drug cartel wars are raging and street gangs prey on vulnerable populations.

Now, they also face the risk of catching COVID-19 in places where they may not have access to adequate health care or even testing, observers say.

“In the months following the agreement, Mexico apprehended a record number of people,” the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) said in an analysis of the year-old immigrationenforcement deal. “However, this increase came with widespread reports of authorities detaining and deporting migrants without due process, a problem that has intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The analysis by Maureen Meyer and Elyssa Pachico said Mexico’s crackdown on Central Americans and others overfilled detention centers there and forced other migrants to take clandestine routes north that exposed them to crime and abuse.

“Past experiences show that this hardline approach may result in temporary decreases in regional migration, but smugglers don’t go out of business,” the analysis said. “And while the COVID19 pandemic is currently having a major impact on mobility and migration worldwide, it has not completely stopped the movement of people fleeing violence and dangerous conditions.”