Title: Immigration 101: What is ‘Remain in Mexico’, or the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP)? | America's Voice
Headings: Immigration 101: What is ‘Remain in Mexico’, or the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP)?
Immigration 101: What is ‘Remain in Mexico’, or the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP)?
Originally published November 15, 2019
What is MPP and Who is Affected?
Trump Administration’s Push for the Policy
Tent Courts and a Sham Asylum Process
Dangerous and Deplorable Conditions Faced by Asylum Seekers
Children Caught in MPP
Read more about ‘Remain in Mexico’
Learn more about the Trump Administration’s immigration changes

Content: Being forced to stay in these conditions leaves many asylum seekers vulnerable to gangs, rape, kidnapping, and violent assault — the same dangerous scenarios they fled in the first place. Vulnerable populations, like LGBTQ migrants, disabled people, pregnant women, are supposed to be excluded from the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. However, individual cases have been left up to the discretion of agents, and the result has meant that vulnerable populations are also caught in the program. Rochelle Garza, an attorney with the ACLU, has identified at least 18 pregnant women who have been subject to MPP. Michael Knowles, a union representative for some 600 asylum officers said, “we have reason to believe that CBP’s reasons for doing that is they don’t want the individual to give birth to a child on American soil, because that would then create a new American citizen. This is very troubling.” In October 2019, presidential candidate Julián Castro escorted twelve LGBTQ asylum seekers who sought exceptions to MPP and an end to being forced to wait in Mexico. But all twelve were denied and sent back to the camps. “ If these people — LGBTQ migrants who have been assaulted for who they are in the camps, disabled people, children — do not meet the criteria for ‘vulnerable populations,’ then the ‘vulnerable’ exemptions in ‘Remain in Mexico’ are lip service,” said the Texas Civil Rights Project. A report by Human Rights First noted that a boy with Down syndrome, a deaf and mute woman, and a child who suffers brain seizures and needs specialized medical care, have all been sent back to Mexico under MPP.