Conditions in Matamoros Refugee Camp Put Children's Health and Safety at Risk

Last week, a team of Young Center staff spent three days in the refugee community of 2,000+ people currently trapped in Matamoros, Mexico. The situation is a direct result of the administration’s Remain in Mexico program.

The camp, situated in an abandoned park, lacks running water and electricity. Until recently, there were no government-provided latrines.

The camp, situated in an abandoned park, lacks running water and electricity. Until recently, there were no government-provided latrines.

FAMILIES LIVE IN CONSTANT FEAR

Families subjected to “Remain in Mexico”—almost all with children—have spent months living on the streets of a city that sits just a few steps from the United States. They live under tarps, or in donated tents. They eat meals donated by community groups in the US, who load wagons with food and supplies every day before crossing the pedestrian bridge to Mexico – a bridge that just a few years ago was frequented by tourists and local residents who crossed back and forth every day.

All of these families have been turned away from the United States under a plan that could only have been created by the current administration. Under Remain in Mexico (or the so-called “Migrant Protection” program), any family that arrives at the border in Brownsville is given a date in a U.S. immigration court—but they must wait for their day in court in a country that is not their own, and one whose border towns have few if any resources to share.

JUSTICE DENIED

While trapped in Mexico, families and their children are required to appear in U.S. immigration court. On the day of court, they must be at the U.S. border at 4:00AM for an 8:30AM hearing. This forces them to travel in the dark, on foot, with their children in tow, at risk of kidnapping by cartel members who hope to extort a ransom from family members.

Courts are held in tents and judges appear via video.

Courts are held in tents and judges appear via video.

If families make it to court, they spend hours in freezing rooms, without an attorney, for a hearing in front of a judge who appears on a video screen. At the hearing, our team watched as family after family—including a mother with a two-year-old with a terrible, hacking cough—were advised of their right to a fair hearing. We had to bite our tongues to keep from yelling at the meaninglessness of that statement.  

Worst of all, as a result of other policies put in place by this administration, most of the families will ultimately lose their immigration cases. Even if they have evidence that they will suffer harm if forced to return to their countries.

For example—anyone who travels through another country before reaching the U.S. is barred from seeking asylum. A Cuban national who risks a dangerous boat journey can seek asylum at our shores. But if that same person chooses to travel through Central America to arrive here, they will be barred from making the same request. That’s an absurd outcome that has nothing to do with the persecution people face if they are forced to return to their countries.

THEY ASKED FOR OUR HELP

During our visit, we met with parents and held a “charla” (“talk”) about what happens to migrant children when they enter the United States. For more than two hours we answered questions from parents grappling with the best way to keep their children safe on both sides of the border. Those parents are living in abject terror—terror that the local cartels, who act with impunity, will enter the camps at night looking for teenage girls; terror that their children will fall ill after sleeping on the ground as it frosts over in the winter; terror that the smoke from the fires they burn to cook and warm themselves will make it impossible to breathe.

Young Center staff held a charla to speak with families about their legal rights.

Young Center staff held a charla to speak with families about their legal rights.

Those same parents repressed their own terror at their situation to bathe their children in the river, cook simple meals, and wash their children’s clothing and hang it to dry. They carried infants in their arms and crafted toys out of discarded litter or pieces of wood.  And they asked for our help.

Help finding children taken from them by immigration officials after they arrived at the border. Help finding children who’d walked alone across the pedestrian bridge after their parents decided the children were in imminent danger from the cartels or so seriously ill that they could not continue living on the streets of Matamoros. Help submitting requests for protection in court, to find safety for their children and their families.

We are now looking for answers for every case of family separation that we discovered in the camps. But the families need so much more. 

It could take years until this administration’s lawless policies are ended by the federal courts. The administration is counting on the public to ignore the policy because the families are out of sight. But we know the power of the American public, which ended family separation under “Zero Tolerance.” Today we’re asking you to raise the same cry to stop separation under “Remain in Mexico.” 

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

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