REYNOSA, Mexico — Families waiting inside Mexico to cross into the US are increasingly nervous as reports of the child separations enforced under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance policy" sow fear and anger on the other side of the border.
At a migrant shelter in Reynosa, one of the country’s most dangerous cities, BuzzFeed News spoke with four families who are weighing whether to make another attempt at the border or come up with a Plan B — unfathomable for those who fled their countries afraid for their lives.
As Claudia walked past Mexican immigration agents at the bridge connecting Reynosa and Hidalgo, Texas, ready to show their US counterparts proof of her brother’s murder and the risk it presented to the rest of the family, they advised her to turn around because “your kids will be taken from you.”
Patricia tried to cross the bridge with her 7-year-old son to ask for asylum two weeks ago but US authorities turned them around. They never gave her a reason.
Piedad, who witnessed two of her husband’s cousins get killed, had it worse: US agents turned her and her three children over to Mexican authorities, who in turn put them in detention for a week.
They are all now in a kind of purgatory, within walking distance from the Rio Grande but 1,500 long miles from their homes in El Salvador and Honduras, hoping to hear that the Trump administration has backtracked on its “zero tolerance” policy against immigrants, which has led to 2,342 children being separated from their families since May.
Claudia with her daughter, 6, looks out from her shared room at a shelter in Reynosa
Meghan Dhaliwal for BuzzFeed News
Claudia with her daughter, 6, looks out from her shared room at a shelter in Reynosa
Most of the families affected by Trump’s policy are, like them, from Central America, where gangs frequently extort small businesses, forcibly recruit pre-teen kids, and burn houses down as a form of punishment for those who don’t comply with their orders. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this month issued a ruling making it harder for people fleeing domestic violence and gang violence to claim asylum.
Bottom, this is from your own article. Arbitrary detention and high violent crime rate in Mexico suggest that it's NOT a safe third country.
But this article hardly corresponds to what I suggested you do yesterday - i.e. find legal journals and case reports from US immigration judges discussing and rendering formal judicial decisions on whether Mexico is a "safe third country" within the US judicial interpretation of the UN Charter on Refugees. Articles from BuzzFee don't count as legal decisions, last I heard.
