Thread by @AriMSawyer

The MPP program forced thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, where @hrw and others have documented not only a grave risk of violence but a serious lack of access to resources, including healthcare. #COVID19 could be deadly. 1/

The Trump administration has wisely decided to begin shutting down and postponing immigration court for migrants who are not detained (non-detained). This allows people to stay home and work toward #flatteningthecurve. So why did people in MPP have to go to court today?

The Trump admin has so far mostly argued that people in MPP are "non-detained." The rules are different for detained v. non-detained immigrants. If they could be considered detained, they'd be eligible for bond consideration where a judge could provide a pathway out of MPP.

Getting out of MPP means getting into the US, where the vast majority of these people have family members and support systems. But that would defeat the Trump admin's whole purpose of the program in the first place - ultimately, to destroy asylum and deter future asylum seekers.

So the government definitely didn't want judges to feel empowered to provide asylum seekers with a pathway out of the abusive program. This led to judges telling asylum seekers begging not to be sent back to Mexico: "Whether or not you return to Mexico isn't up to me."

Now, all of the sudden, under #COVID19, the decision to postpone non-detained immigration court doesn't apply to people in MPP, and officials are saying people in MPP are "detained" after all. Here's @taylorklevy for more on this:

But the thing is, the US made up the MPP program - a policy federal judges have found is ILLEGAL and DANGEROUS, echoing our findings. It should never have existed in the first place. It should have been halted every day since. And now we have the #COVID19 pandemic...

By forcing asylum seekers to continue showing up to crowded spaces against warnings from every medical expert working on or around the pandemic is insanity. The continue then returning those people to dangerous Mexican border cities where they lack medical support is criminal.

Not only are these people particularly vulnerable, they are often homeless and must return to migrant shelters or makeshift encampments, where #COVID19 would quickly spread. If @DHSgov doesn't postpone these court proceedings and parole asylum seekers into the US, people will die

And it won't only be asylum seekers and migrants who die. It will be people who work in the border courts, immigration attorneys, security guards, janitors, translators, agents working for @CBP and @ICEgov and people living in Mexico as well when asylum seekers are sent back.

The US should immediately end MPP and begin paroling asylum seekers into the US where they can join their families and loved ones in safety and security where folks will have access to all of the appropriate life-saving medical support. This is a matter of *life or death.*

And Mexico should stop accepting asylum seekers in the MPP program back into Mexico as a matter of public health - the US currently has far more cases than Mexico. There's still a chance to #flattenthecurve before things get as bad as they are up north.
@lopezobrador_ @m_ebrard