This is the conclusion of a study that Human Rights Watch (HRW) presented yesterday. The human rights organization interviewed 116 people from the countries of the “Northern Triangle” of Central America – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
All of them are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, which is abbreviated to LGBT after the English names for them. They said they reported violence against them by gangs, family members or state security forces. The governments of the three countries did not protect these people sufficiently, it said in the HRW conclusion.
„Protection actually denied“
„For some LGBT people in the region, the only hope of security is to seek asylum in the US,“ said Neela Ghoshal, LGBT researcher at the organization. „The Trump administration blocks them at every opportunity.“
Under President Donald Trump, the US authorities have so restricted access to asylum and the definition of the term refugee so narrow that LGBT people are in fact denied the protection they had previously received.
Tens of thousands of people try to get to the US via Mexico every month. The majority are fleeing violence and poverty from one of the countries in the „Northern Triangle“. The rates of violence there are among the highest in the world. On the way to the USA they have to go through Mexico – under pressure from the USA they are now stopped by soldiers.
In addition, there is the US program “Remain in Mexico” (stay in Mexico). According to it, people who want to enter the US via the southern border without the necessary documents can be sent to dangerous Mexican border towns for the duration of their asylum or immigration procedures.
In addition, last year the US signed agreements with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, according to which migrants can be sent back if they entered these countries on their way north but did not apply for asylum there.
