Asylum in Texas
by Daphne Alcalá
Asylum seekers from across the world migrate to the United States seeking persecution protection from their home country. In January 2019, the United States in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) declared the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, into effect. Allowing US Border Patrol officers to force non-Mexican asylum-seekers to unfamiliar Mexican localities, the MPP forces time in Mexico that lasts the duration of each migrants’ case-consideration time in US immigration courts, mainly without the legal assistance of any kind (Human Rights Watch). According to the 1-year impact of the MPP, the American Immigration Council recorded that 2,765 out of 59,241 (approximately 5 out of 100) people “subject to MPP and placed in court proceedings had a lawyer” (American Immigration Council).
A landscape of immigration detention in late 2018 was reported by the American Immigration Council, stating that the average daily population of immigrant detainees nationwide “increased more than fivefold in the past two decades”, all while immigration detention facilities “faced numerous civil and human rights violation complaints” (American Immigration Council). MPP was established with the aim of addressing the crisis across the shared U.S.-Mexico border and “restoring integrity to the immigration system” (Department of Homeland Security). The Trump administration narrowed and inured the path to safe asylum in 2018, while the Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention rate in Texas counties with high numbers of immigrants rose along the difficulty of US-granted asylum (Cameron, Platoff, McCullough, & Ura).
Through the use of TRAC Immigration data from the year before, during, and after the implementation of the MPP, in Figure 1, the data demonstrates that 5 out of the 8 counties analyzed experienced lower rates of detained immigrants in 2018, the MPP implementation year. The number of unauthorized immigrants after the MPP, as detected by the connected line points across the bar graph, has more immediate correlation to the overall county population in the three-year time frame (plotted in Figure 2) than it does to the number of detained immigrants. A surge in population for the counties with the highest number of unauthorized immigrants could also increase the ICE detention rate, yet when population size of the three-year interval is introduced, it follows the variation of the original variable that plotted the number of unauthorized immigrant population in each immigrant leading Texas county, as displayed in Figure 2.
The findings of this research do not suggest that stricter federal law on immigration that complicate the path to granted asylum have no effect on the lives and safety of unauthorized immigrants living in Texas counties. Rather, these discoveries should emphasize the exceeding number of asylum-seeking immigrants who are risking their lives and those of their families in dangerous expeditions to the US under “zero tolerance” policies. Removing or altering migrant protection protocols does not ensure the protection of these humans — including whether or not these families will be separated from each other (Vine).
It has been over two years since the “Remain in Mexico” policy began, but migrants remain in the difficult process of pursuing asylum claims in the US, as the unraveling of past administration takes place. Despite their legality in the United States, asylum-seekers and other immigrants, who have dangerously arrived in search of protection, must be recognized as human beings.
“Human rights don’t change based on race, religion, sex or nationality. Human rights don’t change based on whether you seek safety by land, air or sea.”
— United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Works Cited
Cameron, D., McCullough, J., Platoff, E., & Ura, A. (2018, July 10). While migrant Families seek shelter from Violence, Trump Administration NARROWS path to asylum. From https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/10/migrant-families-separated-border-crisis-asylum-seekers-donald-trump/
Department of Homeland Security. Assessment of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).From https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/assessment_of_the_migrant_protection_protocols_mpp.pdf.
Human Rights Watch. Q&A: Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” Program. (2020, October 28). Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/29/qa-trump-administrations-remain-mexico-program#
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/detention/
Kriel, L. (2021, March 18). The people we left behind: How closing a dangerous border camp adds to inequities. From https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/18/asylum-mexico-border-migrants/
American Immigration Council. Policies affecting asylum seekers at the border. (2020, April 01). Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/policies-affecting-asylum-seekers-border
Satija, N. (2018, July 05). The Trump administration is not keeping its promises to asylum seekers who come to ports of entry. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/05/migrants-seeking-asylum-legally-ports-entry-turned-away-separated-fami/
Unauthorized immigrant population profiles. (2021, January 12). From https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/us-immigration-policy-program-data-hub/unauthorized-immigrant-population-profiles
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (n.d.). Human lives, human rights. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/human-lives-human-rights.html
Vine, K. (2018, June 16). What’s really happening when asylum-seeking families are separated? From https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/whats-really-happening-asylum-seeking-families-separated/
