Report: "Remain in Mexico" Program Harms Kids, Families

Human Rights Watch, Jan. 6, 2021

"The United States government’s “Remain in Mexico” program subjects children and adults to serious, ongoing harm, including abduction and rape, and should be quickly and decisively dismantled, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. President-elect Joe Biden should quickly act on his promise as a candidate and end the two-year-old program. The 103-page report, “‘Like I’m Drowning’: Children and Families Sent to Harm by the US ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program,” is a joint investigation by Human Rights Watch, Stanford University’s Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Program, and Willamette University’s Child and Family Advocacy Clinic. Children and adults interviewed described being sexually assaulted, abducted for ransom, extorted, robbed at gunpoint, and subjected to other crimes under the US Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), known as the “Remain in Mexico” program. In many cases, they said these attacks occurred immediately after US authorities sent them to Mexico to await US immigration court hearings on their asylum applications, or as they returned from hearings."