A Mexican Indigenous woman who had been repeatedly raped and impregnated in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, was turned away by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials when she tried to seek asylum without an appointment. Her rapist was looking for her at the time, per the report.
In several cases, parents told researchers that they sleep in encampments with cable wires tied around their children because they fear their children may be abducted, abused, or trafficked while they sleep.
Asylum seekers face additional barriers at ports of entry
Migrants trying to seek asylum in accordance with the new rule still face additional obstacles at ports of entry.
Researchers documented people waiting for up to six months for an appointment on the glitchy CBP One app, which has been rife with technical and accessibility issues.
Lack of reliable access to smartphones, internet, and electricity has created a discriminatory system where people with more resources are able to book appointments sooner, advocates say. The app isn’t available in Indigenous languages, excluding many asylum seekers from Guatemala and Mexico.
CBP officers have turned away and limited the number of asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry without an appointment, leaving them to wait in outdoor lines that hardly move. In May, hundreds of people waited for more than a week in line outside of the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry in Nogales.
Mexican authorities have restricted access to U.S. ports of entry to those without an appointment, the report found.
Further abuses from Mexican authorities ranged from “discriminatory and arbitrary detention, intimidation, robbery, extortion, sexual assault, and enforced disappearance through collusion with organized criminal groups,” per the report.
Source: AZCentral
