,
10 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
HAPPENING NOW: @SenBooker escorts victims of abuse seeking asylum across the Santa Fe bridge from Juárez, Mexico to El Paso, TX. The asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico under the MPP program. They have asked for their identities to be protected. @CoryBooker
The senator spent 4+ hours speaking w/ the asylum seekers at the Organización Internacional Para Las Migraciones (OIM) in Juárez prior to the border crossing. The action comes following the campaign’s statement to end the border crisis. corybooker.com/issues/immigra…
Why protest the MPP? As part of the UN Convention against Torture & Other Cruel/Inhuman/Degrading Treatment/Punishment, the US is obligated not to return anyone “where there are substantial grounds for believing that [they] would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
The MPP program has coincided w/ an increase of murders in Juárez. 151 people were killed in May & 80+ were murdered in the first 17 days of June. There has also been an increase in sex/human trafficking of asylum seekers. I witnessed a woman getting taken by a pimp yesterday.
That same woman had her Cuban passport taken by border patrol & was sent back to Mexico w/o it due to MPP. With no money & no passport, the Cuban woman, who had the legal right to remain in the US while waiting for asylum, was forced back.
The senator has made it through with the asylum seekers. They will receive proper care/protection at a shelter (not a detention center) here in the United States.
“...I’m gonna fight for these five folks and do everything I can to see that they get fairly evaluated. This is a long process that they’re now engaged in and I’m gonna make sure my office does the right thing...” @SenBooker upon arriving across the border
“It’s given me a greater conviction, a greater sense of determination, to fix this broken system & to correct the horrible things that Donald Trump is doing from the exec. office. I believe the next president can transform this system to make it safer & stronger as a nation...”
I asked @SenBooker if he heard of border patrol confiscating passports of some asylum seekers. He said he has not heard of any specific cases. However, it is something that is happening to many people being sent back, of which myself & others have heard from migrants first-hand.
Here is a statement on the situation of MPP’s in Mexico by Enrique Valenzuela, who works with the State Population Council of Chihuahua.
