The US Has Been Asking Mexico to Detain Migrant Kids. Here's What That Looks Like Edwin Rios - Mother Jones
go to original April 13, 2015

Read the report - The Cost of Stemming the Tide: How Immigration Enforcement Practices in Southern Mexico Limit Migrant Children’s Access to International Protection (PDF)

A new report by the Georgetown Law School's Human Rights Institute found that Central American child migrants apprehended in southern Mexico over the past year have faced excessive stints in detention, often in poor conditions, deterring them from seeking asylum abroad.

The study, released Monday, concluded that Mexican immigration officials have failed to adequately screen children for international protection needs and did not inform them of their right to apply for asylum. "Unfortunately, the reality for most migrant children apprehended by immigration authorities in Mexico is characterized by the violation, rather than the protection, of human rights," the report concludes.

The group of Georgetown researchers interviewed 65 accompanied and unaccompanied children, parents, government officials, aid workers, and people in the southern Mexican border city of Tapachula and Guatemala City.

...While the number of kids crossing the US-Mexico border alone shot up to 68,541 in fiscal year 2014, estimates show that US Customs and Border Protection will apprehend only 37,000 child migrants in fiscal 2015. Some experts have suggested that the decrease can be attributed to stepped-up enforcement in Mexico, taxing an already flawed system of immigration detention there.

Read the rest at Mother Jones

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