Tag: Human Rights

• The Trump administration is proposing a far-reaching overhaul of the asylum system that would make it harder for applicants to win humanitarian protection in the U.S. and would allow the government to quickly deport many more asylum seekers at the border. The proposal, made public Wednesday by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, would mean most asylum applicants are no longer entitled to a full court proceeding to hear their claims, as they are now.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• Legal advocates tasked by a federal judge with helping to find migrant families separated at the U.S. border in 2017 and 2018 say that after months of pleas, the government last week handed over new data that could be critical to helping them find the families.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• The Trump White House blocked the Justice Department from making a deal in October 2019 to pay for mental health services for migrant families who had been separated by the Trump administration, two current and two former senior administration officials told NBC News. 

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• Lawyers working to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration before and during its “zero tolerance” policy at the border now believe the number of separated children for whom they have not been able to find parents is 666, higher than they told a federal judge last month, according to an email obtained by NBC News. Nearly 20 percent, or 129, of those children were under 5 at the time of the separation, according to a source familiar with the data.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• Since the introduction of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – also known as “Remain in Mexico” – in 2019, asylum seekers seeking to enter the US via the US-Mexico border must wait in Mexico for the duration of their US immigration court proceedings. As a result of this policy, thousands of migrants and asylum seekers found themselves sleeping on the streets near the border. Gradually, a camp of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 people began to form on the banks of the River Grande that separates the northern Mexican town of Matamoros from the Texan town of Brownsville.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• The House Judiciary Committee released the findings of its 21-month investigation into the development and execution of the Trump Administration’s family separation policy, which resulted in more than 2,500 migrant children becoming unnecessarily separated from their parents.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• The federal agency that cares for migrant children was not told the Trump administration was intentionally separating parents and children at the border, even after an official asked why there was a surge in unaccompanied minors requiring care, says a report released by the House Judiciary Committee.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• As one legal challenge to the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program heads to the Supreme Court, a new one is being launched in California. The program, known officially as Migrant Protection Protocols, requires most asylum seekers from Latin American countries to wait in Mexico while their immigration court cases progress in the United States. The lawsuit, which aims to become a class action, was filed in the Central District of California.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Tuesday decried what he called “misinformation” surrounding the repercussions of the Trump administration’s discontinued policy of separating migrant families at the southern border, saying some deported parents “have chosen” to remain separated from their children.

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy

• A new paper, published on the website of the medical journal “Pediatrics” on Tuesday, calls the federal government’s handling of migrant children at the border “consistent with torture” and recommends that pediatricians and child health care professionals take action. 

Tags: Human Rights, Migration, U.S. Policy