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According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the world is experiencing the greatest refugee crisis in recorded history alongside increasingly restrictive limits on asylum seekers and refugees. In 2020, the US administration established a ceiling for refugees of 18,000 people, the lowest number on record, and only 11,814 refugees were admitted to the United States. The Biden administration has expressed commitments to building a coherent asylum and refugee system and quickly reversing recent detrimental policies. But the administration has cautioned how quickly change might occur, given how “agencies and processes…have been so gutted.”¹

2016 to 2020 included an overwhelming series of changes to laws and policies affecting asylum seekers, often with little documented planning or communication, wreaking severe effects on conditions for asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border. These changes had significant consequences for human rights, most notably the linchpin right of access to information. At the US–Mexico border, must the right “to seek, receive and impart information” be fulfilled in order to fulfill the right to asylum?

While information professionals are not expected to be experts in law, they are experts in understanding the link between access to information and the realization of justice and human rights. This chapter investigates the role of the information professional in the fulfillment of the right to asylum, particularly in the context of contemporary asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border, volatile information landscapes, and the legal and historical framework in the United States for seeking asylum.

The Remain in Mexico Policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), forced asylum-seeking children into seemingly untenable situations and conditions across the United States’ South Texas border. This case study examines stories told by the children of Tent Zero and their parents about the conditions and experiences they faced as a result of MPP. Their stories reveal that the conditions asylum-seeking children at the South Texas border faced have been severe and include, but are not limited to, a lack of adequate food and water, extreme weather, inadequate sanitation, and a lack of appropriate or consistently available schooling. Prior research has not fully investigated how educators can and should work with students who have experienced such severe conditions, which often result in compounded emotional suffering. By examining the effects that the MPP, which was instituted during the Trump administration, has had on youth and families staying in Matamoros, Mexico, as a result of this policy, this case study not only provides a glimpse into the lived experiences of asylum-seeking children and families at the South Texas Border, but also provides insight and guidance for educational policymakers, educators, and communities where these youth transition to and continue in school in the US. As a starting point, all of the asylum-seeking children who participated in this study expressed their interest in and longing to go to school demonstrating both the practical and symbolic importance of formal education in asylum-seeking communities like those at Tent Zero.

Since 1986, there has not been another federal immigration reform policy that has legalized the status of the undocumented migrants living and working inside the United States. Instead, there has been only criminalization and punitive measures. From the administrations of Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, and now that of Joe Biden, there has been a bipartisan continuity of the “enforcement-only approach,” which has corresponded with capital's increased reliance and preference for non-citizen labor. The abandonment of inclusive citizenship and rights-based immigration reform in favor of restrictive measures allows for capitalists to increase capital accumulation through greater exploitation of migrant workers. Working backwards from this process shows how this method of labor procurement and exploitation extends from the roots of imperialist expansionism abroad: the imposition of free-trade agreements and economic displacement, regional militarization, and the regulation and criminalization of cross-border migration. Because of these factors, it has become apparent that prospects for citizenship and rights-based reform will not likely be advanced electorally within the current configuration of party politics in the United States, and has therefore shifted to different forms of class struggle in workplaces and communities across the country.

Granting ‘sanctuary’ in the United States to those fleeing poverty and violence is rooted in a deep history of hospitality and compassion. As we are witnessing a rise in xenophobia accompanied by policies of exclusion, we also see a rising number of ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ limiting their cooperation with immigration authorities that many communities consider are using extremely harsh and punitive measures to detain and deport irregular migrants. As this chapter will demonstrate, there has been a dramatic increase through ‘immigration federalism’ of the number of these jurisdictions in cities, states and municipalities since the first practices of ‘sanctuary’ in the 1980s as result of the waves of forced migration due to the civil wars in Central America. The author also proposes that those entities granting ‘sanctuary’ to irregular migrants should also apply practices of ‘compassionate migration’ as described in the chapter to expand their protections further and include them in their communities.

Most US activists place a high priority on elections. The default strategy for those seeking policy change is some combination of electoral campaigning and pressure campaigns targeting politicians. Yet policies show a high degree of continuity across recent presidential administrations. Despite substantial differences in rhetoric and legislative agendas, the policies resulting from Republican and Democratic presidencies have stayed within a narrow range, defined by the promotion of corporate profits, the impunity of law enforcement agencies, the defense of imperial prerogatives, and nearly unfettered ecological destruction. Focusing on the Trump and Biden presidencies, I analyze some of the structural barriers that inhibit major policy change. I also explore why the ruling class as a whole has not yet united against parasitic industries like fossil fuels and pharmaceuticals that endanger the interests of other capitalists. I argue that activists must move beyond electoral and legislative approaches by directly disrupting ruling-class interests that have the power to change policy. Only then will we win major progressive reform.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the diversity of trauma Latin American (LA) refugee children in the USA experience across migration. It proposes ways that practitioners and policymakers can use knowledge from existing research to improve services and respect the rights of LA children.

The paper used a systematic review approach supplemented by additional sources to capture current representative knowledge. The paper uses staged migration and social ecological approaches for organization and discussion.

LA children have historically and contemporarily been exposed to more instances and types of trauma than their non-immigrant US counterparts. LA refugee children have a high need for international protection that is not reflected in the US policy.

Knowledge of possible trauma types among LA children can inform practitioner expectations and prepare them for care management. Officers must be well-trained in both potential trauma-related content and geographic context and have excellent interviewing skills. Lawyers, advocates and judges – the latter who create precedent – play a critical role in children’s cases and should have access to high-quality, geographically and historically relevant and contemporary information.

The levels of violence in Latin America; the rate of child trauma; and the spike in unaccompanied children at the border compels the USA to reassess their positions on (a) refugee caps, (b) asylum screenings and (c) interception-related policies, protocol and practice.

This the first review to specifically focus on empirical trauma research specific to the LA child’s migration experience.