Remain in Mexico: Migrants face uphill climb to get out of program

SAN DIEGO — Vulnerable migrants facing persecution in Mexico are having a difficult time getting out of the Remain in Mexico program because the federal government is limiting their access to attorneys and preventing them from preparing for asylum interviews, according to immigration lawyers and human rights workers.

Under Remain in Mexico, asylum-seekers must live in Mexico while waiting for immigration court hearings. People afraid of persecution in Mexico can be removed from the program and wait in the United States if they pass what is known as a “fear of return” interview.

However, immigration lawyers claim that the U.S. government is making it difficult for migrants to pass that interview. Specifically, they say that the Trump administration’s policies limit migrants’ access to legal representation, prevents applicants from preparing for the interview and sets an unreasonably high legal standard to prove fear of being persecuted.

“We know that in practice those interviews are problematic,” said Monika Langarcia, immigrants’ rights staff attorney for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial counties.

“If people request those interviews in court, they are subject to wait in detention for what could be days on end for the interview, they don’t have access to a lawyer while waiting for the interview and, for the most part, they don’t have access to a lawyer during the interview,” she added.

Local immigration lawyers representing people in the Remain in Mexico program say clients with legitimate safety concerns have been denied the chance to wait in the United States. In one instance, a Honduran man received threatening text messages from the same gang he ran away from. Gang members told the man that they knew he was living in Tijuana and that they were coming for him, according to Luis Gonzalez,...