WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas

(AP Photo)

18 Jun 2020 | Podcast

Beyond the Wall: A Roundtable Discussion on Border and Migration

 

This month, WOLA premiered an animated video for our Beyond the Wall campaign and recorded a panel discussion. Our panelists discuss the challenges and solutions on a rights-respecting approach to migration. The panel is moderated by Mario Moreno, WOLA’s Vice President for Communications, and includes Geoff Thale, the President of WOLA, Maureen Meyer, WOLA’s Director for Mexico and Migrant Rights, Adam Isacson WOLA’s Director for Defense Oversight, and Adriana Beltrán, WOLA’s Director for Citizen Security.

Beyond the Wall is a bilingual segment of the Latin America Today podcast, and a part of the Washington Office on Latin America’s Beyond the Wall advocacy campaign. In the series, we will follow the thread of migration in the Americas beyond traditional barriers like language and borders. We will explore root causes of migration, the state of migrant rights in multiple countries and multiple borders and what we can do to protect human rights in one of the most pressing crises in our hemisphere.

Sign up for updates here: https://www.wola.org/beyondthewall/signup-beyond-wall/

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and ericb399.

Transcripts are generated using a speech recognition software and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

 

Transcript

Narrator:

What you’re about to hear is our premiere of an animated video for our Beyond the Wall campaign and a panel discussion that follows our panelists, discussed the challenges and solutions on a rights respecting approach to migration. The panel is moderated by Mario Moreno, WOLA’s vice president for communications and includes Geoff Thale, the president of WOLA. Maureen Meyer WOLA’s Director for Mexico and Migrant Rights, Adam Isacson, WOLA’s director for Defense Oversight and Adriana Beltran, WOLA’s Director for Citizen Security

Animated Video Voiceover:

In the lead up to this year, the Trump administration created a human rights crisis at the border by separating and detaining migrant families in inhumane conditions, pushing Mexico to deploy its national guard in a migration enforcement capacity, holding up key aid to central American countries, and rather than help migrants at seeking life saving protection and a chance to contribute by delivering them to dangerous Mexican border towns and central American countries ill-equipped to care for them today. What was once a human rights crisis has also become a deadly humanitarian catastrophe using COVID-19 as a pretext, the Trump administration has ramped up its cruel policies, endangering the health and safety of tens of thousands of lives. It has continued to hold migrants in inhumane detention conditions, leading to aggressive and horrific COVID-19 outbreaks among detained migrants. It has deported migrants with COVID-19 to central American countries and elsewhere all while making critical humanitarian aid for these countries contingent on cooperation with draconian migration enforcement policies, and it has defied its legal and moral obligations by shutting down the us Mexico border to asylum seekers, tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have been expelled immediately upon entry into the United States.

Animated Video Voiceover:

They often have no choice, but to stay in crowded border encampments where their lives are at significant danger from insecurity and COVID-19 spread it have to be this way.

Animated Video Voiceover:

We can protect public health and human rights. Here’s how we could do it. It starts at home by ensuring that law enforcement agencies with a demonstrated culture of abuse and no public health expertise like ice and CBP do not play a leading role in processing asylum seekers. And by getting serious about alternatives to detention, which can help strengthen social distancing and other health measures while improving due process at the border. The U S needs to end policies like remain in Mexico and metering that forced migrants to wait in unsafe and unhygienic border conditions. Let’s instead work with Mexico to ensure the rights, safety, and health of migrants and asylum seekers, and rather than holding up critical humanitarian aid to central America, let’s partner with courageous advocates in the region who are fighting the corruption that prevents millions from getting access to care. And the human rights abuse is driving so many to migrate borders should not be barriers to human rights, join WOLA’s Beyond the Wall campaign to fight for humane regional migration policies.

Mario Moreno:

So let me just jump right into the discussion here. The video touches on a bunch of different subjects that are relevant to the issue of border migration and how the Trump administration has stepped up its efforts within the context of COVID-19. One of the things that it talks about is this continued insistence on detaining migrants in ice detention centers, which has led to sort of this horrifying spread of COVID-19 among detained populations, Adam, who we have a sense of how aggressive that spread is within ice attention centers and why the conditions in these centers lend themselves to the spread of diseases and viruses like this.

Adam Isacson:

Hi Mario. Thanks. We do have a sense, although it’s only, we only know as much as ICE testing allows. Let me show you all a graphic here. Give me one moment while we work with zoom. Hopefully you’ll be seeing it in a second. That’s the population of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in ICE’s network of detention centers around the country. As you can see in the recent weeks, it’s gone up by about, Oh, a little over 200 positive cases a week. They are testing pretty consistently, also about four or 500 cases per week to the point where now we have 1,709 detainees in detention centers who have tested positive for COVID-19 about 5,100 had been tested. There are about 25,000 total right now in ICE’s network of detention centers. And you know, they’ve let some go. So this means that less than one in five had actually been tested for COVID-19, we’re seeing this steady spread I would say by this time, next week or the end of next week, even at the current pace of testing, they’re going to hit 2000 infected people. Let me try to stop the second you stop the sharing because my mouse is being stubborn.

Adam Isacson:

The well, while we figure out how to do that I should point out that the the, ICE holding people in. There we go we’re back. ICE is holding people in conditions in which social distancing is almost impossible. And I shouldn’t even say ice. The top 10 detention centers are actually run entirely by private for profit corporations, geo group, and core civic are nine out of those 10. The people who have been detained are about 60% have no criminal record at all, not never convicted of any crime about 90% have never been convicted of what ice considers to be a serious crime curiously of those 1,700 cases only to have been recorded as dead by ice of COVID-19, which, you know, compared to the general population where one out of every 17 or 18 people who is tested positive has impact died.

Adam Isacson:

You wonder why the numbers are so low and what we’re not finding out. We are dependent on the numbers that ice under heavy pressure from the house judiciary and appropriations Democrats is posting every day to its website. But they’re not reporting much on deaths because they have much, I guess, fuller command of that information, the conditions in these privately run centers I, like I said, do not lend themselves to social distancing. People are mainly in common dormitories sleeping in bunk beds that are close together. They share cafeterias when there is an outbreak in a detention center. They often put people who are showing symptoms together and some of these common rooms, and don’t even let them go to the cafeterias or common spaces. So they’re basically in the hole in solitary during that lockdown under normal circumstances and including even now in some of these detention centers, the privately run corporations they give people an allotment of things like soap and water and and, and sanitizer, but for if they want any more than what their alignment is, they actually have to pay for it.

Adam Isacson:

As though they were in a real prison ICE could be releasing these people, they have discretion to do so if they’re not considered flight risks, which in many of these cases with no criminal records, there’s no reason to believe they would be flight risks. About 5,500 of them are in fact asylum seekers. There are such things and ICE has tried them and call alternatives to detention programs where for a fraction, a small fraction of the cost of detention, you could have a caseworker keeping track of somebody while they’re sheltering in place with a sponsor, usually a family member in the United States, making sure they don’t fall through the cracks and show up to their hearings. Ice won’t do that mainly for purely political reasons. Trump’s base would freak out. Can you imagine what they would say on Fox news if there was a mass liberation of people in these detention centers, even if they were nonviolent non flight risks imagine what Stephen Miller would do inside the White House. So, you know, this is really because of political criteria and people might die because of these political reasons.

Mario Moreno:

So, so you sort of mentioned that there’s, we have alternatives to this that most likely will not be deployed at least within this administration. So in that context, do you have a sense of how bad this could potentially get? I know you mentioned 2000 cases by next week. Has there been any work done to sort of determine what are we looking at here as a worst case scenario? in ICE detention centers.

Adam Isacson:

Yeah. I mean, Mario, actually I recommend everybody listen to a podcast that Mario recorded back in early may with the principal authors of a statistical study overseen by the government accountability project, where they ran the numbers and estimated that 72% of individuals in ice detention were expected to be infected by day 90, under what they called their optimistic scenario. 72% within three months, a while, nearly a hundred percent would be infected by day 90 under a more pessimistic scenario. So you’re looking at almost everybody who’s stuck inside these detention centers being infected. Now I just add, I mean, members of Congress are making noise about this. You know NGOs like WOLA have been making a lot of noise about this. There have been letters, but nobody can compel ICE to use its discretionary power. There is no nothing in the law that says that ice has to let people go for these health reasons. Attorneys in some specific cases have one releases from some detention centers, but we’re talking really maybe a hundred total nationwide. There’s been some transfers that have been one and others from one place to another, but nothing across the board. So we’re stuck really informing and appealing to public opinion right now.

Mario Moreno:

So thank you, Adam. So, so we have this, you know, leak and really dire situation in U.S. Detention centers and the U S government continuing to insist on detaining migrants in conditions that facilitate the spread of this virus. And simultaneous to that, there’s an effort being Maureen to fundamentally and the right to asylum at the us border by Shutting it down. Can you sort of walk us through that decision to shut down the border and what it means more broadly for asylum seekers?

Maureen Meyer:

Well you just said that they’ve actually taken advantage of the pandemic to limit who can enter the United States. Obviously the us Mexico border is still open for legal commerce and trade and flows, but on March 20th, the administration adopted a regulatory framework which enabled center for disease control to issue an order that basically prohibits the introduction of undocumented individuals from basically countries where you have a communicable disease. So, you know, ironically being in the country that has the most COVID cases in the world, the administration used the pretext of people coming from any of these countries, including Mexico and central America might have the virus. Therefore, if you don’t have, you know, you’re not a legal resident or us citizen, we’re going to deny you entry into the United States ironically, or maybe not.

Maureen Meyer:

So ironically, the Mexican governor agreed to this. So, you know, the Mexican government receives deported Mexicans on a daily basis, it’s their obligation. But under these orders, they have also received central Americans that are being expelled from the United States. There are accounts of individuals from other countries as well, but majority central Americans, including families and unaccompanied children. What we know is that in March and April alone, over 20,000 people, persons, including unaccompanied children were expelled and denied, denied admission to the United States, expelled back to Mexican border towns that the procedures are such a fast track. That’s about 90 minutes between someone being apprehended by border patrol agent to being sent back to whatever is the closest point of entry. I think it’s, you know, we learned last week that the Mexican immigration authorities are accepting individuals at 18 different ports of entry, including a lot of areas that are pretty remote and where you don’t have any civil society presence or special services to the U S and Mexico had agreed on nine ports of entry for repatriating Mexicans.

Maureen Meyer:

Now they’ve doubled the number of areas where people are being returned, which just exposes them to more risks. And what we also know is there’s very little screening being done. Individuals can still try to request protection in the United States agents. Aren’t asking they have done what we know publicly only 59 screenings for protection concerns under the convention against torture. And in this entire period, only two people have actually been able to get admitted into the United States for reasonable fear. So, I mean, in all the purposes, it is impossible to request asylum at the U.S.- Mexico border. And we know that they’re using this order indefinitely. So it was originally for 30 days. Now it has been extended until at some point the CDC or the Trump ministration determines that there is no virus and no risk we’re expecting it to continue, unfortunately, perhaps until the end of the year.

Mario Moreno:

So, so we have this situation in which if you’re an asylum seeker or migrant, you basically set foot in the U S and you’re merely turned back without necessarily having a chance to make a claim for protection. So what happens to you as a migrant or asylum seeker after you’re expelled? You know, what, what kind of services do you have available to you? What kind of support has the Mexican government offer can offer? What’s sort of happening to these, you know, 20,000 folks that have been expelled immediately upon entry into the U S?

Maureen Meyer:

Well, we know the Mexican immigration agency has the, the obligation to receive people and process them. It’s depends on, obviously if you’re Mexican versus central American, what procedures you go through. I think the reality at the border is that there are very little services available for this population. The majority of civil society and private, you know, privately run shelters have had to close down, or they’re like we heard in Tijuana last week. They’re just starting to reopen as have so many risks that they had within the shelters for spreading COVID. So there’s very little places for people to stay. We know that the Mexican government has also in, particularly in the first month of these new orders detained a lot of central Americans at the border, and then forced them back to Southern Mexico. Oftentimes literally dumping them in the Mexican border towns, the central American governments, Guatemala had closed their borders.

Maureen Meyer:

And so the Mexican government was arguing that we can’t return you, but we’ll just let you hang out in Southern Mexico. And maybe you can make your way back home. They basically abandoned a couple of hundred people, as far as we know in that procedure. Currently they’re working to improve how they’re receiving people. They, we were told last week that are doing health protocols, et cetera. I think in general, the services are still very inadequate for the number of people coming. And it’s not clear how many of these people really didn’t want to request protection in the United States. And currently have even been denied the ability to request a pilot in Mexico. We do know of a few cases, if that, if it’s not clear, if that’s like the general norm I wouldn’t say on, in Mexico’s favor, it hasn’t closed access to asylum. It’s one country that is still receiving asylum claims. They’re not being processed, but they are still being received. But of that, it’s not clear how many people that are being expelled through United States might actually decide to request protection in Mexico.

Mario Moreno:

Okay. So in addition to these 20,000 individuals, or is, there’s a population of folks that has sort of been overlooked in the last couple of weeks, and those are the migrants and the asylum seekers who are already waiting for asylum hearings because of Remain in Mexico and metering or the pandemic, what what’s, what’s their status? What, how do they have any hope at, at making a sound claims at any point in the near future? Just more information about that population of folks that’s separate from these 20,000 individuals.

Adam Isacson:

Sure. Let me, let, let me take that. I mean, you’re right. It’s an enormous population. We don’t know how big it is anymore, because a lot of people may have given up. But we’re, we’re looking at, you know, this is how things looked as of February. There’s two different populations here. The blue are people who had come to the U S border asking for asylum, they’d come to a border crossing and were met by CBP officers on the borderline saying, come back later, great, take a number and come back later. And people waiting months by this process called metering keeping them from actually getting to us soil and asking a us border guard to begin an asylum process. The green are people who are victims of the remain in Mexico or migrant protection protocols policy.

Adam Isacson:

In early 2019, the United States began sending asylum seekers back to the Mexican side of the border, even after they were either apprehended or had come across and asked for asylum and said, okay, you have a court date for five months from now show up, back at the border then, but until then you, your, your new home is Ciudad Juarez or Tijuana or wherever you are. After late May, early June of last year, like a year ago, right now, when president Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs on Twitter, if Mexico didn’t do more to stop migrants the remain in Mexico program was expanded dramatically. So that by the end of last year, there was something like 75,000 people between Remain in Mexico victims and metering victims who are waiting and waiting and waiting for their chance to make their asylum claim on the U S side of the border, living in shelters, living in substandard housing, some cases living in tent encampments, now with the health restrictions at the border remain in Mexico, still exists.

Adam Isacson:

People who are not expelled which means people who are not from Mexico or central, America’s Northern triangle, but who do speak Spanish or Portuguese still get put into the remain in Mexico program and sent back to Mexico. We’re talking about probably a few hundred people a month adding to this and many other people are simply giving up those who are still in remain in Mexico. Imagine how desperately you’re cleaning to your asylum case right now, if you’re still showing up at the border crossing for your court date and being given a much later court date, because it’s been delayed by the, the COVID-19 situation. And you’re still staying in Ciudad Juarez or Matamoros in your tent or in your shelter or wherever you are trying to wait for the state. You, you, you do not have a frivolous asylum case.

Adam Isacson:

If this is your desk, this desperate to make this happen. A number of these people have given up it’s probably not 70,000 people in the border towns, although it could be, if you add all the expellees as well. We are very concerned about the spread of COVID-19 in the tent encampments, in the shelters. There’s a government run shelter full of Remain in Mexico victims in Ciudad Juarez that we visited back in December that had 800 people in it at the time bunk beds, as far as the eye can see in a place, the size of like a Costco I can’t do, we, we do know that there are now positive cases in that facility. As of two weeks ago, we, we don’t know how fast it’s spreading, but it’s, it’s an item of humongous concern. So Mario, that, that’s the situation we’re seeing right now. They’re on the border. Again, we don’t know exactly how many people we’re talking about. But it is it’s a lot.

Mario Moreno:

Maureen, do you want to add anything to that?

Maureen Meyer:

Just quickly. I think there’s, there’s two other aspects of this, which is the people within the remain of Mexico programs still have a chance to request asylum in the United States. It’s a very difficult ask with lots of obstacles, to lack of illegal representation and, you know, waiting it out in Mexico. I think for those that are on the wait list, which is currently a little bit over 14,000 in terms of estimates, those individuals face even bigger obstacles because of the measures adopted by the Trump administration since last summer, which was one, this asylum transit ban, which makes it extremely difficult to request asylum in United States. If you’ve traveled through another country where you could have requested asylum. And so it’s going to be a lot of denying cases. It’s not clear right now, how many of those cases might be denied regardless because they said, well, you should have requested I’m in Mexico or central America.

Maureen Meyer:

And the other are these asylum cooperation agreements that the administration had in place before COVID with Guatemala. They announced the signing of the agreement with Honduras, right in the first few weeks of the outbreak of a pandemic, where they were based in the Guatemala case, actively sending asylum, seeking families to Guatemala and forcing them to request asylum there. And so those, those agreements are still in place. They were still negotiating one with El Salvador. And that’s the other kind of dynamic of this is that even if we come back to some sense of having a normality at the border, the Trump ministration will do everything possible. That to prohibit April form requesting asylum in the United States States, especially those that came after mid July of last year.

Mario Moreno:

So this was, we have a population of about a thousand and change folks into detention centers who are, who have contracted the virus and many more who are at risk of doing that. We have populations that are being expelled 20,000 people. Now, population is still waiting at the border. We also have the third population, which is those folks that are being still deported to central American countries and elsewhere including some who have been deported while testing positive for what will having COVID-19. Adriana. This is sort of the story as deportations continue a pace, how are central Americans preparing for adequately quarantining, these individuals who could be deported with symptoms and what risk is there to that this could be a vector of spread in different central American countries.

Adriana Beltrán:

Sure. Thanks, Mario. Yes. As you, as you mentioned this by the epidemic, the Trump administration has pressed ahead with deportations to central America. Guatemala did suspend deportation flights in April, but this week, the Guatemalan ministry of foreign affairs has announced that they are resuming deportation flights, but this is a region that has persistently faced challenges of poverty, violence, corruption, which had already left the countries of the Northern triangle in a particularly weak position to respond to that pandemic even not taking into account the, the deportation flights. So the insistence of continuing to the poor migrants is contributing to the public health crisis in these countries and placing enormous challenges in an already under resource and strain healthcare system and public services across the three countries as was mentioned, you know, testing has been far from reliable. And so you have had many who have been carriers of the virus Guatemala, and this is the reason why they temporarily suspended that flights confirmed.

Adriana Beltrán:

And this was back at the end of April, that they had at least 100 deportees that had tested positive. Now, back then, that made up about 20% of the total recorded cases of COVID-19 in the country. The governments, you know, have set up reception centers, but I would say that in general, these have lacked adequate conditions are ill equipped to handle the pandemic. And in some cases have been very poorly managed, you know, across the three countries. The governments have taken really insufficient men measures to provide medical screening for deport, for deported migrants. When they arrive at these receptions centers in Guatemala, for instance, for awhile, they weren’t even testing deported migrants but we’re sending them to their communities to self quarantine. And in El Salvador, you’ve had many cases of individuals who have been you know, held in these centers who were tested, but never given the results.

Adriana Beltrán:

Some will were held for more than 30 days. Some who have complained about the conditions later received reprisals from security personnel and because these countries, you know, there’s restrictions on public transportation, very strict curfews. It, you know, many families, particularly if they’re coming from a rural regions, tastes great difficulty in picking up you know, their family members from reception center. So many have had to make their way home on their own again, you know, facing this strict curfew. So they could then end up in another quarantine center because they violated curfews. Others have nowhere to go. I mean, you have many migrants that left because of persecution. And, you know, as Mario mentioned, in the case of Mexico, in Guatemala shelters that normally provided basic services and protection for these migrants have had to close due to fears of the spread of the, of the epidemic. What you’ve also seen is an increase in stigma in communities against deported migrants. You know, when they return to their communities, because many fear that they could re spreading the virus. So you’ve had cases like one that was reported in Guatemala and the department where community members threatened to set fire to one of the centers that was designated to receive deportees. And then, you know, when after several who had reportedly tried to escape the center out of fear that they were going to be killed.

Mario Moreno:

Wow, that’s that’s an impact of the story. So we’re sort of seeing this. So one of the things that’s been, not one of the things that’s happening as a result of these actions collectively, is that we’ve seen migration flows sort of stop at the U S Mexico or reduced significantly at the us Mexico border. That’s, you know, that maybe that might be a function of these cool actions, that cruel policies that the Trump administration is taking. And it might be a function of, you know, just limited mobility for everybody in the Western hemisphere would stay at home orders and quarantining in curfews, but should we be wary of a future migration crisis because the kill can we understand sort of what the current conditions are in central America, how the pandemic is affecting those conditions and whether that pretends a future of migration crisis, that we’re not prepared for it. I don’t know. Go ahead.

Adriana Beltrán:

That’s a great question, Mario. I would say, you know, as we know, you know, migration has long been an escape out for thousands of children and families, individuals in Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador, who were fleeing, you know, extremely high levels of violence and security, poverty, the effects of climate change, and frankly, poor government responses, you know, a great part due to the systemic corruption in their region. These conditions had not changed, you know, before the pandemic hit the region. And in fact, you know, it has made the countries even more vulnerable to COVID-19. So the impact is going to be greater. And though, you know, we can’t predict really the scale of what future migration flows are going to be. I would say that, you know, the economic impact that we’re expecting from the pandemic on people’s livelihoods on violence and corruption is very likely to lead to another know mass movement of families, children, individuals, you know, seeking safety and protection.

Adriana Beltrán:

You know, we’re already seeing projections from multilateral institutions on, you know, how this is going to hit the economies in the region looking at significant increases in the rates of unemployment and increase of those that are in the informal economy, which in these countries is already pretty pretty significant part of the, of the workforce. This is going to be exacerbated by the dropping remittances, which as many people know is unimportant percentage of these countries GDP. And right now the, you know, you’re expecting a fall of about 20% in remittances. Of course, this is going to hit the hardest those low income communities where many migrants come from. As you know, this is a region that has been for decades, gravely impacted, but the deep seated and systemic corruption and the government’s, you know, efforts and responses to the epidemic have been no exception to, you know, to corruption.

Adriana Beltrán:

And in fact, you know, it is situations in emergencies like these where corrupt officials and networks take advantage to try to align their pockets. And so you’ve already started seeing cases of graft and corruption in all three countries. You’ve seen, you know, and with that, you also see governments that have sought to limit transparency and adequate oversight over the emergency funds that have been approved by the three legislatures. And I would say it’s not just a lack of government capacity because in some cases like in El Salvador, the governments are actually using the epidemic to undermine the rule of law and shut down democracy. You know, when you’re looking at security and the impact of the epidemic on security as has happened in other regions, you’ve seen a rise in sexual and gender based violence. And what you’re seeing is the, you know, re-adaptation in different ways to the measures that are being implemented by criminal groups.

Adriana Beltrán:

So in some cases they’re filling that void of governments in El Salvador, you’ve had communities where gangs have, you know, try to solidify their control. I know there’s, you’ve seen, you know, extortion rates go up and the insecurity is not just coming from criminal groups, but in fact, in some countries, the governments measures have included deploying the military to the streets. And so you see hundreds of people being arrested, sent to corn descenders for violating curfews, protesting the lack of food and water. And you’ve seen numerous reported cases of abuses. So, you know, as people start experiencing more and more the impact that the pandemic is going to have in their livelihoods in their daily lives and just the inadequate response of the government many rules, you know, seek protection elsewhere. Thanks.

Mario Moreno:

I mean, this is a fairly bleak picture, writ large from central America to Mexico in the us Mexico border. You know, the situation right now, which, which follows on the abusive and exceptionally cruel border migration policies is pretty horrifying. And it’s also hard to see how we begin to, to sort of imagine an alternative approach or how we come out of this. The last question that I have before we go to the audience for questions is, is there a path by which the U S can eventually move to a more humane approach to regional migration policies? And then what would you even start with on the border at a moron in Mexico, Maureen, or in central America, Adriana. We can start with Adam on that one.

Adam Isacson:

Well, sure. I mean, on the border, the solution isn’t particularly dramatic or, you know, bumper sticker slogany because it’s, it’s only a crisis because the Trump administration made it a crisis in the first place. This is an administrative issue. There is no reason why the United States shouldn’t have the capacity to take people who are desperately afraid of dying in their home country, receive them at a proper land port of entry on the border process them quickly, give them a date that’s in the near future for a hearing, allow them to stay with families or sponsors under alternatives to detention programs and turn around a decision as quickly as due process allows. And if obviously a quick decision would dissuade a lot of people who have weak asylum cases to begin with this should be easy. I mean, you know, I’ve just, before I hand off the word, I mean, I’ve been reflecting a lot on all of this, these defund, the police proposals, cause those are based on a premise that there are so many things that us police do right now in our cities that don’t require a gun and a uniform and combat training and all that kind of stuff.

Adam Isacson:

The profile of most migrants really since the early 2000 tens has been an asylum seeker an unaccompanied child or a parent with a child who wants to be apprehended by authorities and wants to make their case for asylum is not running away. That doesn’t require a border patrol agent with a gun and a badge. It requires a big processing center full of people who know how the procedure works and who have experience ideally with dealing with people who’ve been through trauma who then put them into this whole system of, of alternatives to detention and, and a immigration court system with the independence and the capacity to turn around cases quickly. It’s an administrative issue, Mario.

Mario Moreno:

Thank you. Maureen, do you want to add something about Mexico.

Maureen Meyer:

Yeah, I mean, I think obviously next goes borne the brunt of a lot of Trump administration policies, particularly at the border in terms of all three main of actual program, but also, you know, accepting based on threats

Maureen Meyer:

And very valid like concerns of tariff threats that the Trump administration had kind of threatened last year, which led to this agreement last June to increase enforcement in Mexico. But I think there is a way to rebuild that relationship based more on cooperation of looking at how do we work together as countries to address regional migration flows clearly mostly from central America, but Mexico has over 400 people in their asylum case system right now that are not from Mexico or from central America, they’re from African countries and other countries maybe really working together to address regional migration flows. Obviously with the complication that currently the ministration of Mexico has in a sense embraced its role as an immigration enforcer and detainer and deporter. But certainly I think if you had a different approach than the United States, you could get the Mexican government to collaborate in a different way.

Maureen Meyer:

Mexico is also a destination country. It’s clear from conversations, Adam, myself and others have had with asylum seekers in Southern Mexico. That many people, if they were given us out of Mexico would stay there. They started to have built social networks, family networks, particularly Northern Mexico, where people are staying, you know, they had record number of asylum cases last year, over 19,000 people requested asylum this year over to date. And the U S has been a big supporter of UNHCRs role in Mexico. So really looking at how do you engage with both the Mexican government and then international agencies to strengthen Mexico’s reception capacity. I’m looking at, there are people that don’t feel safe in Mexico. So how do you also expand cooperation between the U S and Mexican government to address those people? Particularly, I would say unaccompanied children, who, who are from central America, who have a parent in the United States, how would you ensure that that’s their best interest to get to the United States and not request in Mexico?

Maureen Meyer:

So there’s a lot that could be done on cooperation. And I think lastly, you know, stop pushing Mexico to, to be the U S virtual wall on these issues. I think one has been a real concern about the deployment of the national guard for immigration enforcement. The national guard in Mexico is primarily a military force. They’re not trained to be interacting with vulnerable populations, deviates from any of their security tasks that they may have. And so certainly stopping that type of pressure on Mexico, but looking more at how do you engage with them? And I’m building accountability for their immigration agency, for the national guard. Really. I think I’m looking at this as a regional issue that all the countries need to address together and not just trying to outsource us obligations to Mexico and other countries in the region.

Mario Moreno:

Adriana, is there anything you want to add about central America specifically?

Adriana Beltrán:

I mean, I would say in central America, it’s you know, addressing the, the conditions that factors that have led people to, you know, have to seek protection and safety elsewhere. And this requires us to sustain longterm commitment. These are not you know, conditions that are going to be resolved overnight. So it does require that we focus on the longterm in supporting reforms and transformation in the region that includes you know, recognizing the need to focus on improving governance and addressing the systemic corruption. You know, corruption has greatly hinder the ability of the governments to provide basic services. It’s the reason why, you know, one of the reasons why the healthcare systems are so weak and have been unable to address that pandemic. So strengthening the rule of law in tackling corruption should be a central priority of the us towards central America.

Adriana Beltrán:

That means also supporting those that are leading reform efforts in these countries both within and outside of government. And we have, you know, examples of that, you know, from the work of CICIG again and others over the last several years, it means also strengthening institutions. And that means, you know, how do you work to ensure the independence and better capabilities of prosecutors and judges? How do you focus or strengthen community policing and criminal investigations? It also means you know, targeting assistance to support employment creation and job creation programs that focus on at risk youth in targeted communities and provide emergency assistance to help the countries address the impact of climate change, which is a huge issue in the region. How do you support community level programs that reduced youth crime and violence, and also programs that provide protection for women and children who suffer very high levels of violence. It also means, you know, supporting civil society, organizations and journalists who are doing a great job you know, at providing oversight, but shedding the light on, you know, these problems and how their governments are addressing or not addressing them in their respective countries.

Mario Moreno:

Thank you. Geoff, is there anything you want to add?

Geoff Thale:

I just want to jump in very quickly, first of all, to say that I think the video is really great. I think this discussion has been really helpful. The, you know, the video and much of the discussion highlights, as you said, Mario, a situation that’s pretty bleak at the same time. I think it’s pretty clear from what everybody here just said, that solutions actually do exist. Some of them are short term things that could be done at the border. That’d be relatively easy, very humane and address real problems. Some of them in Mexico and in central America are midterm and longer term, but I think it’s clear things can be done. So I don’t think we should walk away kind of in the face of this bleak situation, feeling hopeless. That’s one piece.

Geoff Thale:

The second is it’s pretty clear that getting to those solutions depends a lot on who’s in power in the government. November matters, talking to the political campaigns on all sides is a nonpartisan organization about what those solutions could be matters, and WOLA’s trying to do that. And then the final thing I’d say is that attention matters enormously and that, you know, the administration can get away with doing a lot of this stuff because there’s so little attention. And in that sense, hearing that the house judiciary committee is pushing back, hearing that WOLA and other NGOs are pushing back, hearing that we have this kind of video to call attention and hearing what everybody in this call to do can do to get Congress, the white house and the media to pay attention makes it more and more likely that we’ll get to a point where solutions do start to get implemented. So I think we’ve all got a role to play in that. And I want to thank everybody for being part of it.