Daniella Burgi-Palomino, co-director of the Latin America Working Group, explains the devastating blows that the Trump administration has dealt to the right to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border—and how COVID-19 response has taken it to further extremes.
Topics covered include some of the programs that the Homeland Security Department had been rolling out to make seeking asylum virtually impossible; how it is using the coronavirus response, probably illegally, to return people—even unaccompanied children—without regard to protection needs; and how the U.S. government is continuing to deport people to Mexico and Central America without testing them for COVID-19 infection.
Daniella mentions a petition to stop the asylum ban and deportations, and H.R. 2662, the Asylum Seeker Protection Act, introduced by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-El Paso, Texas).
