F
or fi fty years, Doctors Without
Borders, also known by its
French name, Médecins Sans
Frontières, has provided lifesaving
medical care around the globe to
the people who need it most. The
organization—which has teams
running some four hundred and
fi fty projects in more than seventy
countries—is known for its ability
to respond rapidly to medical
emergencies in even the most
remote locations. But Doctors
Without Borders teams are now
confronting a humanitarian crisis
in Mexico that is being actively
worsened by the United States
government’s policies, as thousands
of migrants and asylum seekers
have been turned away by the U.S.
and remain trapped in dangerous
cities throughout Mexico.
The Trump Administration
eff ectively dismantled the U.S.
asylum system and erected barriers
to discourage as many migrants
and asylum seekers as possible
from coming to the United
States. In the last few years, these
migration policies, combined with
the COVID-19 pandemic and an
escalation in cartel violence, have
pushed an already fraught situation
toward a crisis point. Women,
children, and entire families who
fl ed extreme violence and poverty in
their home countries of Honduras,
El Salvador, and Guatemala—the
so-called Northern Triangle of
Central America—have increasingly
relied on dangerous routes in search
of safety. It’s not only people from
elsewhere in Central America
who have been uprooted: Doctors
Without Borders staff are also
seeing Mexicans who have fl ed
from dangerous states such as
Guerrero, where the organization
also operates.
“We have seen an increase in all
forms of violence against migrants,
ranging from sexual violence
to extortion and destruction of
documents,” Marcos Tamariz,
Doctors Without Borders’ deputy
head of mission in Mexico and
Central America, said.
In the face of such overwhelming
challenges, Doctors Without
Borders has worked quickly to
meet the evolving needs of people
on the move. In Mexico City,
staff members run a clinic for
migrants and refugees who have
been exposed to extreme violence,
such as torture, kidnapping, rape,
and further psychological abuses.
The organization’s teams also
provide medical and mental-health
care through mobile clinics along
the migration route in northern and
southern Mexico, including in
the dangerous border cities of
Reynosa, Matamoros, and Nuevo
Laredo. In these places, migrants
are often forced to sleep on
the streets or in makeshift shelters
in overcrowded and unsanitary
conditions, where they are
vulnerable to robbery, kidnapping,
and other threats. Doctors Without
Borders also works in Guerrero
state, providing care to people
who have fallen victim to violence
between armed groups. Many of
these patients live in isolated
regions and would otherwise have
no access to health care.
Despite the United States’
obligations under international
law to provide refuge for people
seeking asylum due to violence
or persecution in their home
country, the U.S. government
persists in implementing policies
that are designed to turn people
away. The continuation of these
containment policies only deepens
the vulnerability of asylum
seekers, exposing them to the risk
of further violence and
exacerbating their needs.
One of the most damaging U.S.
policies still in place is Title 42,
a public-health order issued in
March, 2020, which uses the
COVID-19 pandemic as a
pretense to rapidly expel people
and essentially close the border to
all asylum seekers. “President Biden
must rescind Title 42 and swiftly
restart the asylum process, including
at ports of entry, while implementing
evidence-based measures to
safeguard public health during the
COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr. Carrie
Teicher, the director of programs
for Doctors Without Borders
in the United States, said. “The
Administration’s failure to restore
asylum processing is currently
keeping thousands of asylum seekers
stranded in situations of uncertainty
and violence in Mexico and across
Central America.”
Restricting safe and legal pathways
to asylum tends to drive up the
number of irregular crossings
between offi cial ports of entry.
“We all remember the huge waves
of migrants going to Europe in
2014 and 2015—it’s exactly the
same thing that we’re seeing here
over and over again,” Tamariz said.
“Several governments in this region
have expressed their willingness
to be more open and humane, but
have proven to be completely the
opposite. It’s quite evident that they
know what the answer is, but the
actions are not refl ecting that.”
Doctors Without Borders
representatives in the U.S. have
fi ercely advocated for the current
Administration to fulfi ll its pledges
to rapidly rebuild the U.S. asylum
system and ensure a safe and
humane immigration policy. The
organization urges people around
the world to pay attention to the
ongoing challenges facing refugees,
asylum seekers, and migrants, and to
work to fi nd solutions. The medical
and humanitarian needs of people
on the move cannot be ignored.
“We are an emergency humanitarian
organization, responding in the most
independent and neutral manner
that we can,” Tamariz said. “But we
must also push for changes across
the region to help protect migrants
and asylum seekers.”
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DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
THE MIGRATION CRISIS IN MEXICO
RESPONDS TO
As the Biden Administration continues to push
back asylum seekers, how is the medical humanitarian
organization helping people forced to flee?
