The Biden administration will allow asylum seekers who were enrolled in Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program and ordered deported to their home countries to revive their asylum cases. Under Remain in Mexico, thousands of asylum seekers were forced to wait in often dangerous conditions in Mexico while their cases made their way through U.S. courts. BuzzFeed reports many of them were denied asylum because they couldn’t make it to court because conditions were too dangerous to travel, while other asylum seekers never arrived at their court hearings in the U.S. because they were kidnapped by cartels, were ill or denied entry because they were pregnant.
This comes as immigrant justice advocates continue to denounce the Biden administration for expelling and turning away asylum seekers who recently arrived to the U.S.-Mexico border. As of June, the group Human Rights First has tracked 3,250 kidnappings and other attacks, including rape, human trafficking and violent armed assaults, against asylum seekers and migrants expelled at the U.S.-Mexico border since President Biden took office.