Unaccompanied minors stranded without way to seek help or safety

Crucial organisations at border face crisis from Trump’s USAID freeze

‘The right to seek asylum simply does not exist at the border and vulnerable people are stranded’ - Amy Fischer

Amnesty International has found that the right to seek asylum in the United States is non-existent at the US-Mexico border, in violation of its national and international human rights obligations.

The 24-page briefing - Lives in Limbo: Devastating Impacts of Trump’s Migration and Asylum Policies - outlines the US government’s complete gutting of the right to seek asylum at its border with Mexico, providing virtually no way for people seeking safety to go through the legal process. According to US immigration law, people seeking asylum must apply at a port of entry.

The research finds that while the mandatory use of the US Customs and Border Protection One App to seek asylum was unlawful, ending its use has left tens of thousands of people stranded in Mexico with nowhere to go – even unaccompanied minors are stuck without a way to seek safety.  

Without CPB One appointments, people are trapped in risky and precarious circumstances on the southern side of the border, which is especially dangerous for Mexicans seeking asylum.

Amnesty conducted interviews at the border between 3-9 February with dozens of people who were seeking safety in the US, documenting their treatment, and the impact of the change in border policies (see testimonies in the briefing).

Along with targeted US Immigration and Customs Enforcement across the country, the Trump administration has dismantled the US Refugee Admissions Program and ended rights enshrined in the US Constitution including birthright citizenship, along with advocating other anticipated actions rooted in racism and white supremacy.

Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Program Director, said:

“The Trump administration has made the US-Mexico border a zone that is overtly hostile to human rights and displays utter disregard for the humanity and dignity of people on the move.

“The right to seek asylum simply does not exist at the border and vulnerable people are stranded with border organisations—who themselves could now be subject to retaliation and criminalisation from the US government— struggling to prevent an even bigger humanitarian disaster.”

The research’s alarming findings stem from the Trump administration’s executive actions and the increased militarisation of the border by the Mexican government.

Impact of freezing crucial aid

Lives in Limbo has been launched in the broader context of the Trump administration’s stripping of funding for crucial humanitarian organisations working at the border that received money from USAID and other government programmes whose funding is now frozen.

Humanitarian and immigration organisations that operate on the border to provide shelter, legal help, and humanitarian care to people seeking safety are also now facing a crisis as they are left with no financial means to continue to operate and carry on their life-saving work.

Mary Kapron, Amnesty International’s Researcher, said:

“Shelters at the border struggle to tell children that they have no options left.

"Many of the kids barely understand what is happening to them in the first place. And those who do are left with an impossible decision: either go back to where they fled and understand that they may not survive or put their lives in the hands of traffickers.”

Mexican increases border militarisation 

In Mexico, the Government sent 10,000 new members of the Mexican military deepening the militarisation at the border, fuelling a climate of fear, and leading to mass detention and deportation.

Amnesty continues to call on the US to urgently adopt solutions that abide by human rights obligations and stop playing politics and stoking fear with people’s lives to facilitate the adoption of increasingly draconian border and immigration policies that violate the human rights of people seeking safety, fuel violence against Black, brown, and Indigenous communities, and exacerbate the dysfunction of an already-beleaguered immigration system. 

The organisation also calls on the Mexican government to cease collaboration with the US on harmful immigration policies and immediately implement measures to ensure the safety and security of people seeking asylum who are transiting through Mexico.