has allowed many Reversing one Trump policy, Biden d States. By not asylum seekers to enter the Unite thousands are still reversing another, however, many being expelled. BY MARCIA BROWN
MATAMOROS, MEXICO – At its height, more than 3,000 asylum seekers lived in the tent city in Matamoros, on the shores of the Rio Grande—a stone’s throw from another life in the United States. The encampment first began to take shape in 2019, just a few tents in a plaza abutting Gateway International Bridge, as the newly implemented Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) took effect. Also known as Remain in Mexico, this Trump administration policy required asylum
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seekers to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings, sometimes for months or years. In border cities like Matamoros or Reynosa, criminal cartels thrive, their hold amplified by an increasingly militarized border that migrants cannot easily cross. They prey on those migrants, confident that they can extract American dollars that the migrants’ relatives in the U.S. can wire—to pay the cartels to release the migrants they’ve taken hostage. Melvin, an asylum seeker who spoke to the Prospect from a shared apartment in Matamoros, said he was kidnapped in Matamoros and held for six days until his father sent money from Maryland. The few tents in the plaza became dozens and then hundreds as migrants found solidarity and relative safety in numbers. Within a few months, the camp had moved to a city park across the street. Media coverage and local awareness grew. Volunteer groups like Team Brownsville and Angry
Tias y Abuelas (Aunts and Grandmothers) sprang up to support the camp. This was a refugee camp created by America’s policies, yet its residents weren’t refugees under American law. They were asylum seekers. This distinction meant that the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) never declared it a refugee camp like dozens of others around the world, which meant that UNHCR could not offer the accoutrements of refugee camp life, such as U.N. medical care, food, and other basic necessities. In its early days, there was scant public safety, no access to bathing facilities or bathrooms, and little adequate shelter. There were public-heath challenges, including an outbreak of chicken pox, even before the global coronavirus pandemic. Despite those impediments, asylum seekers created a sense of community in the
