Unedited automated transcription:
In February, the Biden administration began winding down. Former president Donald Trump's controversial remain in Mexico program. It sent people seeking asylum in this country back to Mexico to wait for months for their day in immigration court, in the us. But over the summer, Judge ordered government officials to restart the program.
Now the Biden administration is preparing to roll it back out in the coming weeks. Reporter max Rivlin Nadler tells us that on the San Diego Tijuana stretch of the border migrants and their advocates are split about what to do. Sean tall is a 23 year old transgender woman. She has been living in a crowded migrant encampment and Tijuana for a month sitting on a wall near her tent.
She tells me she fled Honduras to. After she was kicked out of her home by her father and leader beaten on the streets because of her gender identity. She has family in the United States, but that's not why she's trying to get there.
she says they're very religious and won't accept her in Mexico. She says she was briefly abducted by a gang and has been beaten up on the streets of Tijuana. . She says it's just as dangerous to be waiting in Mexico as it was living in Honduras. She's been trying to enter the United States for months to claim asylum.
And each time she's been turned back because of a us policy known as title 42, that blocks almost all people from crossing the border during the pandemic. But Shantelle is still trying to find a safe way to seek refuge in the U S which. Here's the resumption of one of the most dangerous policies of the Trump administration for over a year before the pandemic, more than 60,000 migrants were placed in remain in Mexico, officially known as the migrant protection protocols, but the group human rights first counted more than 1500 reports of rape murder, and other violence against asylum seekers in the program.
People are living in conditions that. Our best described like a prolonged episode of the hunger games while trying to fight their case. That's Nicole Ramos. She's a lawyer without otro lado. One of the few groups that provides legal services to migrants in Tijuana, waiting in Mexico border cities is not only dangerous C says, but it makes it almost impossible to find a U S lawyer and less than 1% of migrants actually won their asylum case while enrolled in, remain in.
The Biden administration asked Ramos his organization, along with others to help humanely reimplement remain in Mexico. They refused, we are not going to touch that program. We feel like our resources are better used conducting human rights, monitoring and interviews and looking at ways to destroy the program while the Biden administration agrees.
The court order to reinstate. It has officials negotiating with the Mexican government to resume the program in the next few weeks. And lawyers in San Diego say they've been told that immigration judges and courtrooms are already prepared. Kate Clark, a lawyer Jewish family service in San Diego says this leaves legal service providers in a difficult spot.
You can't make an inhumane program humane. That's the hard line for us, but once migrants are placed in remain in. She says there are a few ways lawyers can try to get them out of the program and into the U S to continue their asylum case. Future we're involved with submitting pro requests. That's sort of, um, for us to consider at the Casa Del Migrante shelter on a hill beside the Tijuana river, Kathy Krueger assists to migrants each day.
If people are placed in remain in Mexico, she will provide them with legal. 'cause she knows their options are limited. You want to do it. You just have to try to facilitate them for a smooth way of doing it. Everything that they went through, made them take that decision at the migrant and Cameron, just feet away from the border wall.
Sean Paul and others feel that time is running out. There are plans to close the camp in the coming weeks. Shantelle says she needs to take a step and. To begin her asylum claim.
If there is a chance at asylum in the U S even a slim one, she has to take it. She shows me a photo on her phone with how she feels most comfortable.
wearing makeup, a long dress, a completely different. But here she's in a sweatshirt and jeans trying to keep a low profile. She knew was entering the remain in Mexico program. Won't get her out of Tijuana immediately, but it may be the only concrete step she has right now. And that was max Revlon, Nadler reporting for the California report in Tijuana.
