Thread by @TXCivilRights

BREAKING: We just heard the terrible news that all 12 of our clients escorted by @JulianCastro were sent back to Mexico. This is of course a mockery of due process. Here is our statement on the matter:

#LetThemIn

The 12 asylum seekers our attorneys, advocates, and Secretary Julian Castro escorted to the Gateway International Bridge of Matamoros and Brownsville this morning have been sent back into Mexico.

Their claims to exemptions to the “Remain in Mexico” policy have been rejected by Brownsville CBP, who have broad discretion over the matter.

This is a brutal blow to due process. These 12 people have been in CBP custody for 3 hours, which means that each person had less than 15 minutes for their non-refoulement interviews.

Non-refoulement is when an asylum-seeker or refugee cannot be sent back to the last country they were in because they are subject to persecution there.

If these people — LGBTQ migrants who have been assaulted for who they are in the camps, disabled people, children — do not meet the criteria for “vulnerable populations,” then the "vulnerable" exemptions in “Remain in Mexico” are lip service.

Everyone on the ground here knows it, and now we can prove it. There is no intention to protect migrants in the so-called “Remain in Mexico.” Trump’s intent is to hide the cruelty of his administration away from our eyes.

As soon as the reporters left to file their stories, CBP released the asylum seekers back into Mexico, where they face persecution in an open-air encampment where thousands from countries the U.S. has destabilized are forced to survive indefinitely.

We will be sure to respond to CBP’s complete lack of disregard to due process by demanding transparency and answers on what it will take for CBP to follow its own policy.