A Year of Horrors: The Trump Administration’s Illegal Returns of Asylum Seekers to Danger in Mexico

Since January 2019, the Trump Administration has forcibly returned thousands of asylum seekers to Mexico under a policy it absurdly dubbed as the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP). Waiting months in Mexico for their hearings, asylum-seeking men, women, and children from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other countries have faced life-threatening dangers. Despite overwhelming evidence that this illegal policy is leading to kidnappings, torture, sexual assaults, legal representation barriers, and the denial and abandonment of genuine refugee protection requests, Trump Administration and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials continue to implement, expand, and tout this horrific policy as a “success.” In January 2020, the House Judiciary Committee initiated an investigation of the “legality” of the MPP policy and its “impact on vulnerable populations.”

Below are some key facts and figures on the devastating impact on asylum seekers and migrants after a year of the Trump Administration’s immoral and illegal Remain in Mexico policy.