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Worse Than Expected: Fact-Finding Mission Explains Border Crises

Coronavirus, Health Disparities, Immigrant Rights, Race and Climate, Racial Justice

Fact-finding Delegation Documents Civil Rights Abuses Endured By Refugees At The U.S.-Mexico Border

New Report Outlines Barriers to Requesting Asylum Exacerbating Humanitarian and Public Health Crises   

In response to the current immigration crisis, Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) sent a delegation on a fact-finding mission to witness and investigate conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border. The delegation has now released a report outlining its findings along with recommendations for the federal government to address the border crisis. Click here to download the report.

The report –– titled “Deprived and Denied: Refugees Facing Abuses At The Border” –– is a snapshot of the documented conditions and observations that were gathered by the delegation in October 2021 through visits with community leaders, clergy, human rights advocates, and non-governmental organizations in California, Arizona and Sonora, including:

Kino Border Initiative

Casa de Misericordia

Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project

Justice For Our Neighbors

Immigration Law Clinic of the University of Arizona’s College of Law

Galilee Center

The report details the deplorable conditions at the border, including the illegal deprivation of medical care to refugees and unlawful barriers to asylum-seekers who are fleeing persecution and violence. Border conditions are organized around three major areas: 

  • Denying refugees lifesaving COVID-19 protections.
  • Deprivation and denial of medical care and treatment.
  • Discriminatory and unconstitutional policies masked as so-called “public health” measures.

The report also outlines recommendations and policy changes designed to mitigate the effects of the humanitarian and public health crises that migrants are enduring at the U.S.-Mexico border.  

“Cruel policies and abusive practices, under the guise of public safety and public health measures, have compromised the well-being of people arriving at the border,” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, Executive Director of Lawyers for Civil Rights. “We must restore the asylum application process, and we need more oversight to hold border officials accountable.”

“People are arriving at the U.S. border barely escaping the violence and persecution they suffered in their home countries, only to be met with more cruelty and violence at the hands of U.S. officials. Conditions at the border are worse than expected. What is happening at the border is unconscionable,” said Silvana Gómez, Community Outreach and Engagement Paralegal at Lawyers for Civil Rights.

Click here to download the report.

LCR-Border-Report-FINAL