Migrants live in fear at Mexico-US border

■ Refugee women spend months in captivity, after being pushed into prostitution

San Diego, Nov. 7: A Salvadoran woman seeking asylum in the United States spends her days holed up in her cousin’s cramped slum house just across the border in Mexico — too scared to leave after receiving a savage beating from two men three weeks ago while she was strolling home from a convenience store.

The assault came after she spent four months in captivity in Mexico, kidnapped into prostitution during her journey toward the US.

The woman, 31, is among 55,000 migrants who have been returned to Mexico by the Trump administration to wait for their cases to wind through backlogged immigration courts. Her situation offers a glimpse into some of the programme’s problems.

Critics have said the administration’s policy denies asylum seekers like the Salvadoran woman fair and humane treatment, forcing them to wait in a country plagued by drug-fuelled violence — illustrated this week by the slaughter near the US border of six children and three women. All were US citizens living in Mexico.

The Trump administration insists that the programme is a safe alternative in collaboration with the government of Mexico, even as the president vows to wage war on drug cartels that are a dominant presence in the dangerous border cities where migrants are forced to wait.

The department of homeland security added in a report last week that the programme is ‘an indispensable tool in addressing the ongoing crisis at the southern border and restoring integrity to the immigration system.’

The woman said in an interview that she fled Santa Ana, El Salvador, on Jan. 31 after days on the run from a police officer who demanded sexual acts.

She never said goodbye to her five children — ages 5 to 12 — fearing the officer would discover where they lived. She said she was kidnapped after leaving a Mexican government office on its southern border with Guatemala after inquiring about getting asylum in Mexico.

She and others were taken in a minivan to Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico’s border with Texas. Captors in a large room argued over who would take possession of the men, women and children gathered there.

One wanted to extort money from her family. A second wanted to force her into prostitution. “There’s nothing you can do,” she said after she was told by an official. “This is not your country.”