HOUSTON (AP) — A Venezuelan teenager has been forced back to Mexico by U.S. government authorities who denied her claims that she was fleeing political repression and violence, even after they accepted the same claims from her father.
The teenager, who is being identified by only her first name, Branyerly, is living alone in Matamoros, Mexico, across from Brownsville. U.S. border agents on Monday denied her request not to be sent back under the Trump administration’s so-called “Remain in Mexico” program for migrants.
Branyerly and her father could not request asylum under another Trump policy, a ban on most asylum claims at the southern border for people who came through a “third country.” However, in January, an immigration judge allowed her father, Branly, into the U.S. by granting what’s called withholding of removal, which requires meeting a higher legal standard.
That same judge denied withholding for Branyerly, who was 17 when she originally arrived at the border. She and her father said the judge asked him most questions during the hearing and asked her relatively few. The final result came as a shock to both of them.
She tried to request parole Monday at one of the bridges connecting Brownsville and Matamoros. She was taken into an office on the U.S. side briefly, then told to return to Mexico.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has overseen an economic collapse and political turmoil that’s led to hundreds of thousands of people seeking refuge in the United States and elsewhere.
President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address this month called Maduro a “socialist dictator” and said “all Americans are united with the Venezuelan people in their righteous struggle for freedom.” However, many Venezuelans seeking refuge in the U.S. have been barred by a series of Trump administration policies clamping down on asylum.
Branly and his wife left Venezuela for the U.S. in early 2019, leaving their daughter with a family friend. However, she was soon threatened as well. So Branly returned to Venezuela to find Branyerly, then traveled with her to the southern U.S. border. They arrived in July and were placed into the “Remain in Mexico” program until their January hearing.
Goodwin said Branyerly was in a “particularly vulnerable situation” as the daughter of a known political activist.
“She is vulnerable as a migrant. She is vulnerable as a child. She is vulnerable as a woman,” Goodwin wrote in her request to U.S. Customs and Border Protection that Branyerly be allowed into the U.S. while her immigration case continues. “In other words, there are any number of categories within which it is easy to tell that she is vulnerable being alone in Mexico.”
Goodwin said Branyerly was sent back to Mexico on Monday without her passport. She intends to try again later Tuesday to have Branyerly admitted into the U.S. and to get her passport back.
CBP declined to comment Tuesday.