Living in a tent camp on the US/Mexico border:
The experience of women and children in Matamoros, Mexico

University of Virginia/Texas A&M University

Recent changes to US immigration policy have resulted in a crisis on the US/Mexico border. In January 2019, the Trump administration launched a new immigration policy. The “Migration Protection Protocols” (MPP)—known as the “Remain in Mexico” program—sends asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry on the US-Mexico border back to Mexico to wait for the duration of their US immigration proceedings. Since then, more than 60,000 asylum seekers have been sent back to Mexico, where they live in poor conditions—many in makeshift tent camps, face violent crime and kidnapping, and depend on support from volunteers.

Bruce Springsteen Spotlights Batten Professor’s Work at the Border

University of Virginia

Lucy Bassett has focused her nonprofit work and recent research on the U.S.-Mexico border crisis, specifically a makeshift refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico, a sprawling compound of improvised shelters separated from Texas by just a few yards of dirt and the Rio Grande. As it happens, Matamoros is also the subject of a Bruce Springsteen song, “Matamoros Banks.”

Bruce Springsteen's powerful call to action for Matamoros

Bruce Springsteen

More than 2,500 asylum-seekers are living in a state of intense danger on the streets of Matamoros, Mexico. Many of the most vulnerable people fleeing danger and persecution in Central America and the Caribbean end up in Matamoros because of the widespread belief that the crossing at that point is relatively easier than desert ports of entry.

In squalid Mexico tent city, asylum seekers are growing so desperate they’re sending their children over the border alone

Washington Post

In the middle of the largest refugee camp on the U.S. border — close enough to Texas that migrants can see an American flag hovering across the Rio Grande — Marili’s children had fallen ill.

After U.S. court ruling, Honduran newlyweds among migrants clinging to asylum dream

Reuters

Led by a dream of marrying on U.S. soil, a young Honduran couple travelled thousands of miles from their home in the port city of La Ceiba, narrowly escaping a kidnapping in Mexico before seeking asylum across the border in Texas.

The Out Crowd

This American Life

Reports from the frontlines of the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" asylum policy. We hear from asylum seekers waiting across the border in Mexico, in a makeshift refugee camp, and from the officers who sent them there to wait in the first place.

You've seen the image. Now, hear a widow recall how her husband and daughter drowned in the Rio Grande

60 Minutes

A widely seen photograph of a father and his 23-month-old daughter who drowned trying to reach the U.S. was seared into memory this summer. Now, Tania Avalos, the wife and mother of the drowned migrants, is telling her story to 60 Minutes

Mexico’s Capitulation to Trump Has Put Thousands of Lives in Danger

Slate

The Mexican foreign minister says his government has nothing to be ashamed of. He’s wrong.

There Are Two Types of Detention Facilities at the Border, “Iceboxes” and “Dog Pounds”

Slate

A lawyer who has been volunteering at the border for years helps contextualize the new horrifying details.