- The Migrant Protections Protocol, or MPP, policy is forcing over 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico instead of the US for asylum hearings.
- Migrants are now stuck in Mexico indefinitely as the Trump administration has shut the border to non-essential travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- Gloria, a migrant who was kidnapped and extorted in Mexico, shares her family's harrowing experience.
- View more episodes of Business Insider Weekly on Facebook.
Gloria, her husband and three children have been hiding out at a migrant shelter since July 2019, after they were kidnapped and extorted by Mexican federal police.
They had traveled over 2,000 miles from El Salvador to get to the US border to seek asylum.
But a controversial Trump administration policy called Migrant Protections Protocol, or MPP, is forcing them to wait in Mexico instead of the US for their asylum hearings, even though Gloria told us she is in danger because of what happened to her in Ciudad Juarez.
"I felt awful, and I thought, 'No, this can't be. I will go back to the same place. I don't want to,'" said Gloria, who requested to use a pseudonym to protect her identity. "I was crying, and my children would tell me, 'Mom, what's going on? And I said, 'Look, kids, we're going back to Mexico.'"
Now, the coronavirus pandemic has made the situation even more dire, as the Trump administration has shut the border to all nonessential travel. Gloria and an estimated 60,000 people, mostly from Central America, are indefinitely stuck on the Mexican side of the border with limited access to food, shelter, or American lawyers.
"Unfortunately, the US government has really used the COVID-19 pandemic as a weapon against migrants," Nicolas Palazzo, an immigration attorney representing Gloria with the advocacy group Las Americas, told Business Insider. "We're seeing it at the detention centers, but we're also seeing it across the border, where the government continues to refuse to allow in vulnerable populations such as Gloria or other individuals who are afraid for their life to remain in Mexico."
One migrant's family had a harrowing journey to Juarez.
For over nine months, Gloria, her husband, and three children have been staying in a small room at the Pan de Vida shelter in Ciudad Juárez. The family originally left El Salvador with $3000 in savings, looking to flee gang violence.
"We came here without knowing the way, risking everything and just trusting God," Gloria said. "It was very hard because we couldn't have every meal we needed. Sometimes we would ride in a truck, sometimes a bus, and we were using the GPS on my phone to guide us. Sometimes we slept in the street."
After weeks on the road, when they arrived in Juárez, they were kidnapped by Mexican police officers, who offered to guide them to the border. Her children, ages 13, 8, and 4, were locked in a room and threatened.
"They didn't let me see them until it was nighttime. They took them very late, and I was asking them why they were crying, and they said, 'Mom, those officers are bad,' she said. "'What did they do to you? Why were you crying?' 'Because they were telling us that we would never see you again because they could kill you or something, both you and Dad.'"
The family was set free only after Gloria's mother, who lives in Maryland, paid a ransom of $4,500.
Gloria is not alone. Along the US-Mexico border, human rights groups have tracked more than 800 violent attacks on people seeking asylum over the past year, including cases of murder, rape, and abduction. But she did get lucky, as the shelter put her in touch with Palazzo.
Lawyers on the border are afraid for their lives.
Meanwhile, the lawyers fighting for migrant rights are often afraid for their lives as well.
Palazzo, a 35-year-old Harvard Law graduate, said he travels two to three times a week over the Paso del Norte International Bridge, which connects El Paso to Juárez, to meet with clients.
Juárez is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, with more than 80 homicides per 100,000 people in 2018.
"So when you ask what's the situation at the border, it's deadly," Palazzo said.
Taylor Levy, an immigration attorney who's been working with migrants at the border for over 10 years, told us she's always wary of crossing into Juarez.
"There are a lot of cartel scouts who hang out on the bridges, who approach us sometimes, speak to us and it makes a lot of attorneys worried for our safety," she said.
Asylum seekers are struggling to keep up with changing US policy.
Before the Trump administration's MPP policy went into effect last year, asylum seekers would present themselves to Border Patrol agents, who would take them into custody. They were processed and allowed to remain on US soil while waiting for asylum.
Data show that 90% of migrants waiting in the US showed up for court dates. But now, stuck in Mexico, with little access to legal representation, only about half the migrants are making it to their hearings.
For many asylum seekers, like 38-year old Valmir Elias Nanis from Brazil, it's hard to keep up with changing US immigration policies. Brazilians used to be exempt from the program because they don't speak Spanish, but the policy changed in January. The language barrier makes it even harder for them to find an attorney.
"To the best of my knowledge there are no attorneys in this area who speak Portuguese who are working on MPP cases," Levy said. There's no paralegals who speak Portuguese, it's very problematic."
When we met Nanis on a cold February day, he told us he had already been at the shelter for nine days, and that everyone he had met there was chasing the American dream.
"My son, especially, he wants it even more than me," Nanis said. He is 7. Today he's turning 8, here in the shelter. His dream was to see the United States."
Valmir's son is not alone - estimates show that nearly a third of those caught in the crosshairs of the MPP policy are children traveling with their parents.
On the other hand, children traveling alone are exempt from MPP.
"We are seeing more and more parents making this horrific choice of sending their children across alone," Levy said. "That's really horrific to watch, and that's the forced separation that's being created by this administration."
And many migrants are giving up on the American dream.
Of the 60,000 migrants who have been sent back to Mexico under MPP, less than 1% have been granted asylum in the US. That's why many migrants are choosing to go back home rather than wait in Mexico.
Alex Rigol runs a United Nations program that helps migrants who want to return to their home country. The program, which is heavily funded by the US State Department, has come under fire for sending migrants back to the dangerous conditions they fled in the first place. But Rigol insists that each case is carefully reviewed.
"The people we are returning are people who don't have fear of persecution or fear in their home countries," he said.
Rigol added that migrants who are not aware of the UN program are finding their own way back home often in dangerous conditions.
"A lot of people are now paying coyotes or smugglers to travel back to their countries, because now smugglers have seen the return or travel back home as a new business to jump in," he said.
But some still fight for a future in the US.
Homeland security has praised the MPP policy, calling it a game changer as border apprehensions have gone down every month since May 2019.
But critics and people working inside the government say that MPP is part of a push to make claiming asylum in the US harder and harder - one that has been unfolding for years, both on and off the books.
The latest measures to close off the border to vulnerable migrants during a pandemic is just another example, Palazzo said.
"This is a cruel and inhumane policy that is deliberately using a time of crisis to build up a stronger, even more fortified wall against thousands of migrants who are trying to come into this country," he said.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court blocked the MPP policy. Hundreds of migrants rushed to the border with high hopes. But the Trump administration won an emergency motion to keep the policy in place. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on its legality.
Meanwhile, Gloria and her family are still fighting for a future in the US.
In February, they appealed for a third time to be removed from the "remain in Mexico" policy.
"I need to gather all the strength I have and all the strength I don't have because I can't go back to my country," she said. "I need to keep fighting."
We followed the family until the moment their lawyer, Palazzo, handed them over to Border Patrol agents, halfway across Paso del Norte.
It was a tense and silent walk. Just a few hours later, they were interviewed by asylum officers behind closed doors. Within 24 hours of crossing the bridge, it was all over. Their request had been denied once again. No reason was given.
Their final asylum hearing is in April 2021.
Despite the fear, they plan to wait in Mexico. But Gloria has a message for Trump.
"I would tell the president to take his hand to his heart, and to stop being so hard on immigrants, because not everyone wants the American dream, but we need to be there," she said. "We need our children to be OK, because mostly, we fight for our kids."
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