Legal experts and human rights advocates have denounced the tear gassing of children and other asylum seekers by US forces at the Mexico border on November 25.
“The migrants at our southern border include mothers and small children exercising their legal, human right to seek asylum,” declared the ACLU in a tweet on November 26. It told the US Customs and Border Protection agency: “Tear gassing children is outrageous and inhumane.”
Socialist representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the Trump administration for its treatment of refugees. She issued a reminder that vulnerable people fleeing violence and persecution have the right, codified by domestic and international law, to apply for asylum protection.
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) said that with asylum seekers, including children, being choked by tear gas along the US border with Mexico, “a humanitarian crisis is becoming even more inhumane”. The NNIRR also emphasised that both “US and international laws say these migrants have the right to apply for asylum”.
Meanwhile, Trump continued to demonise the migrants and refugees in Mexico, saying without evidence: “Many of whom are stone cold criminals.”
[Abridged from Common Dreams.]