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Resolution on the situation at the USA-Mexican border

2019/2733(RSP)

The European Parliament adopted by 330 votes to 252, with 55 abstentions, the resolution on the situation at the USA-Mexico border.

The text adopted in plenary had been tabled as a joint resolution by the EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA and ECR groups.

In recent years, a complex crisis of violence and entrenched poverty has driven families, including young persons and children, to flee Mexico and the Northern Triangle of Central America – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – and seek safety, protection and economic stability in the USA.

There is a humanitarian emergency at the USA-Mexico border, where migrants and asylum seekers are detained on the US side after making the crossing. The situation faced by children is particularly alarming and condemnable, as hundreds are languishing in tent cities on the border or are locked behind bars in detention facilities that do not meet minimum human rights standards, as they are overcrowded and lack adequate healthcare facilities, decent food and proper sanitation.

Parliament is deeply concerned about the situation of migrants and asylum seekers at the USA-Mexico border, especially that of migrant children and the appalling conditions in which migrants and asylum seekers, in general, are held in US immigration detention facilities.

The US authorities are called on to:

 

  • end the separation of families and, as a matter of urgency, to reunify with their families all children who are still separated from their parents or guardians in order to ensure their rehabilitation, devoting specific attention to the needs of the children concerned;
  • immediately ensure that all detainees have access to basic rights, such as the rights to water, food, health and shelter;
  • find non-custodial alternatives for migrants and asylum seekers, both children and adults; demands that the children concerned be returned to their families;

Parliament stressed that the army is not the right instrument for dealing with migration issues. It considered that the situation at the border should be handled by specialised police who have been duly trained and instructed to respect human rights and the dignity of migrants.

It undertakes to closely monitor EU development aid to the region in order to ensure efficient standards of development, since this can help tackle the root causes of forced migration.