Remain in Mexico: A Policy that Leads to 1% Asylum Grant Rate

The Trump administration has made more restrictive measures to reduce the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the country. For legal immigrants, measures are more strenuous and it seems that only those who belong in the middle and upper-class families can be granted legal status. While for the illegal immigrants, Trump's administration has been successful in reducing the number of those who cross the borders by upgrading the wall and appointing more border patrol officers.

The "Remin in Mexico" is a policy which halts the migrants to stay in their country while waiting for the approval of their asylum application. However, it was found out that this policy grants only less than 1 percent of the migrant applicants to received American asylum. This means that it would be very impossible to have American asylum after the Trump administration changes its rules in accepting asylum seekers.

In a report from REMEZCLA, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University recorded that more than 47,000 people are in the program as of September this year. Meanwhile, not more than 10,000 have completed their cases. Out of these numbers, 5,085 were denied and 4,471 were dismissed and this is because the decision was not made of the applicants who have ended their asylum application. The Remain in Mexico policy resulted to grant only 11 applicants or asylum seekers.

It can be recalled in the previous Latin Post where a former refugee turned the bus into a classroom to cater to children who stayed in the borders of Tijuana. This is the result of Trump's administration strategy called metering where American-asylum seekers must stay in Mexico while waiting for the approval of their application. This received critics fro the different human rights advocates because it will lead a riskier life to the asylum-seekers.

Thousands have been staying in the borders of the U.S. and Mexico while waiting for the approval of their application. These migrants were also forced to live in a tarp and have to deal with the fluctuating temperature of the place. It was reported also that few children died because of Influenza and a group of American doctors who gave vaccines was arrested for treating migrants especially children with flu in the borders and detention centers.

The implementation of Remain in Mexico policy started on January 25, 2019, where asylum seekers who arrive in U.S. ports of entry on the southern border are required to stay in Mexico while their cases are still ongoing. This policy received again critics from the different human rights groups saying that this would lead many lives of the asylum seekers to be at risk because they are again forced to stay in a country where violence is very rampant.

According to the Department of Homeland and Security that one of the reasons that they have to let the asylum seekers stay in Mexico because they cannot cater thousands of migrants and this is also to avoid overcrowding. There is only a little space that can handle migrants who enter the country without even proper documentation.

At the present, there are more than 10,000 asylum seekers are now waiting in Tijuana and waiting to enter legally the United States. They have been there for months and some of them just arrived days ago. The number of asylum seekers increases as the days go by. Those who cannot wait anymore decided to cross the borders illegally.

Some human rights advocates sued the federal government over the practice of metering. They stipulate that it violates international laws by preventing migrants to seek asylum particularly the Mexicans.