UN Refugee Agency Voices Concern Over US Transferring Asylum-Seekers and Migrants to Mexico by Air

UNHCR Representative to the United States and the Caribbean Matthew Reynolds argued that people aboard the "expulsion flights" risk being sent "back to the very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin."

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has voiced their concerns over the United States adopting a practice of expelling migrants and asylum seekers to southern Mexico under a health order aimed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases.

"These expulsion flights of non-Mexicans to the deep interior of Mexico constitute a troubling new dimension in enforcement of the COVID-related public health order known as Title 42," said Matthew Reynolds, UNHCR Representative to the United States and the Caribbean. "Individuals or families aboard those flights... risk being sent back to the very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin in Central America without any opportunity to have those needs assessed and addressed."

Reynolds also warned that the Title 42 expulsion flights are going to "further strain the overburdened humanitarian response capacity in southern Mexico" and "heighten the risk of COVID-19 transmission across national borders".

"UNHCR has maintained since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that protecting public health and ensuring access to asylum are fully compatible," he stated. "Even where COVID-19 has surged at times, many countries have put in place effective protocols such as systematic health screenings, testing and quarantine measures that have simultaneously and successfully protected both public health and the human right to seek asylum."

He added that UNHCR reiterates the May 2021 appeal by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi for the US government to lift the Title 42 "public health-related asylum restrictions that remain in effect and to restore access to asylum for people whose lives depend on it."