🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️ BIDEN TRASHES HUMAN RIGHTS, ROLLS OUT “LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO 3.0” — Mexican Cartels, Gangs, Corrupt Gov Officials “Lick Their Chops” As U.S. Prez Plans To “Feed” Them More Vulnerable Would-Be Refugees To Abuse — U.S. Seeks To Increase Epidemic Of Violence Against Women & Gender-Based Violence Plaguing Mexico — Dem Administration Kicks Refugee Laws To Roadside — No Wonder He Didn’t Highlight This In SOTU!

Here’s a report from WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/08/biden-border-deportations-mexico/

Ironic, BS quote of the day:

“We innovate a lot in this department,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters at a news conference this month. “This is a very novel approach to building lawful and safe pathways premised on a foundational point — which has historically been proven true — that people will wait if we deliver for them a lawful and safe pathway to come here.”

“Tell it like it is” quote of the day:

Heidi Altman, director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center, a nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants, said the Biden administration is “prioritizing speed over justice and fairness.”

“If the administration moves in this direction, they’re doing so with very clear knowledge that they will be returning people to dangerous situations,” she said. “Migrants who are returned to Mexico are extremely and particularly vulnerable to rape, assault, kidnappings and other violence. This has been so well-documented. The administration knows that this is a reality.”

“Lowlights” of Biden’s proposal:

• Mass deportation of non-Mexican asylum seekers to Mexico in circumvention of “safe third country” provisions of law;
• Illegal return of asylum seekers to documented dangerous, degrading, and life-threatening conditions in Mexico; 
  • • “Many asylum seekers placed into MPP experienced extreme danger in Mexico. Individuals sent to the Laredo or Brownsville courts had to reside or pass through the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which the State Department classifies as the same level of danger as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Many asylum seekers and families were kidnapped and assaulted after having been sent back to Mexico, sometimes within hours of crossing back over the border.”
    • “According to Human Rights First, through February 2021 there were at least 1,544 publicly documented cases of rape, kidnapping, assault, and other crimes committed against individuals sent back under MPP. Multiple people, including at least one child, died after being sent back to Mexico under MPP and attempting to cross the border again.”
    • “The U.S. government did not provide support to individuals sent back to Mexico, leaving people to fend for themselves. Many were homeless during their time in Mexico. In some locations on the border, the Mexican government created shelters that could house some—but not all—of the people sent back. Private shelters also provided housing for some individuals sent back under MPP. In Matamoros, a tent camp sprang up in 2019 where thousands of asylum seekers eventually resided along the Rio Grande in squalid conditions with no running water or electricity.” https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/migrant-protection-protocols
• Feeding women and other vulnerable individuals to cartels, gangs, criminals, and corrupt officials carrying out widespread, endemic, gender-based violence in Mexico; 
  • • “In general, women who are trying to either find work or [who are]…commuting to and from their jobs, [are] exposed…to the risk of being followed. It is already known that in border cities, or at least in Ciudad Juarez, people know how to identify migrants and go after them for extortion, often to kidnap them in order to get what little money they have. They are…very clear targets for certain criminal groups in Mexico, many of which are dedicated exclusively to extorting migrants. And well, women are a more vulnerable target…And if we add to that the issue of sexual violence? I think this is a very big challenge for women: how to survive during the time it takes for the resolution of their [asylum] processes.” https://www.tahirih.org/news/u-s-asylum-deterrence-policies-increase-risk-of-gender-based-violence/
  • Creating a “presumption of denial,” applied largely to asylum seekers of color, in a mal-functioning asylum system already suffering from anti-asylum bias and racial bias;
  • Increased use of criminal prosecutions (known to be a waste of resources and an ineffective deterrent) against those merely seeking to exercise their legal rights to seek protection under domestic and international law (will “family separation” be next for Biden/Harris?);
  • Heavy reliance on “CBP One” app that is known to be, defective, user unfriendly, almost unusable to asylum seekers, and allegedly biased against Black asylum seekers https://www.biometricupdate.com/202302/migrant-activists-in-us-say-mistakes-hindering-cbp-one-app;
  • Mass use of discriminatory, arbitrary “parole,” untethered to the legal “refugee” definition, driven by extralegal considerations such as availability of U.S. sponsor and refusal of native country to accept U.S. deportees, as a substitute for orderly overseas refugee programs and circumventing legally required advance “consultation” with Congress; 
  • Feeding “parolees” intro hopelessly backlogged, biased, dysfunctional asylum adjudication systems at USCIS and EOIR without taking steps to address the glaring problems plaguing asylum adjudication in these agencies;
  • Leaving other “parolees” to “wander America in limbo” without any clear path to residency and at the complete mercy of the political whims of the Administration in charge;
  • Providing no opportunities for “in country” or “beyond the border” parole for those fleeing the Northern Triangle, one of the largest sources of recent flows of refugees and forced migrants;
  • Basically, replacing the current legal, statutory framework for refugee and asylum adjudication, derived from international conventions and years of experience handling refugee and humanitarian crises, with an “ad hoc,” non-statutory, array of politicized restrictionist gimmicks adapted from Trump/Miller and arbitrary, non-statutory benefits handed out to certain groups — but not others — in an attempt to fend off criticism for jettisoning the Refugee Act of 1980 and related laws.

Progressives and advocates, this is a Democratic Administration basically, even gleefully and proudly, stomping on human rights and the rule of law. They call it “innovation.” I call it degradation of humanity and annihilation of the Refugee Act of 1980.

I’m not sure I have any great alternatives, given the racist/xenophobic/nativist policies of the GOP toward refugees and other immigrants. But, I think that progressives and others who believe in human rights, fair treatment of refugees, immigrants’ rights, and racial justice, long mainstays of the Dems, are going to have to reevaluate their support of a Democratic Party that will no longer stand up for these fundamental values and that takes advocates and progressives for granted.

Way above my pay grade, for sure! But, I do know that democracy, humanity, moral courage, and intellectual honesty are failing here, and that the Democratic Party under Biden and Harris is a big part of that betrayal and failure!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-09-23