2/26/20

By Josh Rubin

Our observations have suggested a couple of things. First, we have heard from more than one source that the rate of people being placed into MPP—that is, the policy that strands people in Mexican border cities while a long, drawn out sham legal process takes place—has slowed significantly. We heard this from attorneys who keep track of new MPP cases in Matamoros. And we have watched as the total number of MPP cases reported by the US government has stayed the same for three months now, 60,000 being that number.

And second, just as we became aware of deportation flights from a number of airports, and began our observation of them at the Brownsville airport, we have heard more and more about the deployment of the most direct strategy yet for preventing people from getting relief in our country, under plans that largely bypass even the appearance of respecting international norms of decency. These are known as PACR (Prompt Asylum Claim Review) and HARP (Humanitarian Asylum Review Process), and they operate with the help of agreements with so-described safe third countries like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, under ACA (Asylum Cooperative Agreements).

Simply put, asylum seekers have their claims quickly denied, in places where they have no chance of getting legal help, in holding facilities like the tent CBP (Customs and Border Protection) facilities in places like Donna, Texas. Then they are shackled and bussed to the airport, like the one in Brownsville, Texas, and loaded onto planes in those same shackles, subject to search, and they are let out in one of those “safe” third countries, given a choice, we hear, of applying for asylum (no asylum has yet been granted) or returning to their home countries, from which they recently fled. We have reports that these unwilling passengers have not been advised of any rights they might have, and some arrived confused about where they are, hungry and severely stressed.

For our government, this has the advantage of being even further out of sight than the hellish border cities of Mexico that are still hosting largely unsupported populations of refugees from the violence and poverty of the places they fled. Still too visible for the disappearing act being contrived with the help of Mexico, the cartels that work hand in hand with our brave Border Patrol, and the third countries that, cowed and corrupt, lend their beards to the latest face of the atrocity.

Our government celebrates the lower numbers of the desperate, which they attribute to the reduced likelihood of people finding hope for themselves and their families in the country that has disowned the lamp lifted in New York Harbor, just visible to me this rainy morning as I rest at home.

I will return to Brownsville in a couple of weeks. We will keep our eyes and ears open. We will witness, because we must.