Thank you @sdACLU for suing the govt to ensure access to counsel during fear of return to Mexico interviews. Now that we are allowed to participate, we see how terrifying, cursory and inadequate this system is. All the more reason to keep fighting to #RestoreAslyumNOW. (THREAD)
From @ImmDef Legal Services Director Joyce Noche: I was on the phone tonight while my client sat in a hielera at the border, pleading with an asylum officer in LA, with an interpreter who accidentally disconnected 3 times during the call.
My client described being kidnapped for 3 months in southern MX with her 5-year old son, she described being held in a house, unable to leave b/c her captors were demanding $6,000. She described how her son lived in fear in captivity, and they often threatened not to feed him.
She managed to escape after 3 months and made it to TJ with her son. There she described being followed & confronted by a man who attempted to grab her by her hands and threatened to take her child. She described being seen leaving a shelter and then being confronted by this man.
She was crying hard on the phone. I could hear her voice breaking as she re-lived the fear she felt for her son. She told the officer she feared her captors b/c they wanted money and it seemed they had found her in her shelter as they called there and asked for her by name.
The officer’s last question was whether there was anything more my client wanted to say. At that moment (I wasn’t prepared for this) she began sobbing & pleaded with the officer to not send them back to MX. She begged for her life, through gasping tears she begged for protection
She cried and pleaded. If the interview had been in person, I imagined her falling to her knees and pleading to please not send them back. She has no one in MX, nowhere to go. She is easily identifiable and her vulnerability as a young woman with a small child is apparent.
She begged to be detained in the US rather than sent back. Almost no one passes the non-refoulement interviews despite describing kidnappings, assaults, rapes, robberies, stalking & death threats.
I don’t know what the outcome will be for this client.
I am grateful that I was there to tell the officer why she should not be in MPP. But there are thousands of others who face similar deadly circumstances who do not have a lawyer fighting for them. What chance do they have in this crazy system? This illustrates why we must #EndMPP
There is no justice in a system that is designed to dehumanize. There is no justice in court hearings that railroad due process. There is no justice when our clients lives are being put at risk simply because they are seeking protection. This is why we fight to #RestoreAsylumNOW
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