TRAC at Work

Putting TRAC to Work

		Policy and Public Interest Groups

Human Rights First Thanks the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation, and Operations for holding a hearing

March 2, 2022

Examining the Court-Ordered Reimplementation of the Remain in Mexico Policy

Many U.S. attorneys and humanitarian groups have unable to travel to dangerous Mexican border regions to represent asylum seekers stranded under RMX because of the risks to their safety. Their fears are justified. As Human Rights First explained in a November 2021 factsheet, U.S. based attorneys have been threatened with kidnapping and violence in connection with their representation of people in RMX. Given the many security, logistical, due process and ethical impediments to legal representation that are inherent to RMX, the vast majority of RMX returnees were not able to find lawyers, according to immigration court data analyzed by the Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). As of December 2020, 97 percent of individuals in RMX whose cases had been decided did not have an attorney. By contrast, in non-RMX proceedings, only nine percent of non-detained asylum seekers whose cases concluded in fiscal year 2018 did not have legal representation at any point during their proceedings. Of the nearly 70,000 people placed in RMX under the Trump administration, only 523 people—less than one percent—were granted relief while in RMX.

External Link