Asylum Seekers Rejected By US Suffering Increased Murders, Rapes In Mexico - Rights Group

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2019) Asylum seekers from Central American and the Caribbean temporarily deported from the United States by the Trump administration are suffering escalating abuse including murder and rape in Mexico, Human Rights First (HRF) said in a report on Thursday.

"People seeking asylum from Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, among other countries continue to be kidnapped, tortured, raped and violently attacked while forced by the Trump Administration to remain in Mexico for the US to hear their asylum cases," the report said.

The report, entitled "Human Rights Fiasco: The Trump Administration's Dangerous Asylum Returns Continue," records the violence asylum seekers face after being returned to Mexico under the US Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or "Remain in Mexico" policy, HRF said in a press release.

"Trump administration officials continue to knowingly send people who have asked for refugee protection to be kidnapped, exploited, beaten, raped and even killed in Mexico," HRF official Kennji Kizuka said in a press release. "These forced returns are a human rights catastrophe."

There have been at least 636 publicly reported cases of kidnapping, rape, torture, assault, and other violent attacks against asylum seekers and migrants returned to Mexico under MPP, including at least 138 reports of kidnappings or attempted kidnappings of children, the report said.