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In October 2019, presidential candidate Julián Castro escorted twelve LGBTQ asylum seekers who sought exceptions to MPP and an end to being forced to wait in Mexico. But all twelve were denied and sent back to the camps. “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,” said the Texas Civil Rights Project. A report by Human Rights First noted that a boy with Down syndrome, a deaf and mute woman, and a child who suffers brain seizures and needs specialized medical care, have all been sent back to Mexico under MPP.
Unaccompanied minors, Mexican asylum seekers, and non-Spanish speaking migrants are also explicitly supposed to be exempt. But members of all of these groups have reportedly been caught in the policy as well. Data from Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), shows that some fifty Mexican nationals have been sent back to Mexico under MPP, in clear violation of the policy. Even asylum seekers from Mexico who are not officially caught in MPP are now facing longer waits due to the backlog being caused by the program.
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