“No, that’s not how this works”: An interview with Nicole Ramos of Al Otro Lado.

On asylum seekers trapped in Mexico and the work of a frontline legal services organization to support them; plus music recs from Alice Kao

This is the first in a three-part series on frontline legal services for asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants. In Part II we talk to Sofia Kaligorou, our former student who now works with detained children at The Florence Project in Arizona. Part III features Julia Valero, whom we met while volunteering at RAICES. These interviews will be rolled out over the next three months.

In December 2018, the Trump administration formalized a policy of turning back migrants who present themselves at port of entries and request asylum. The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as Remain in Mexico or Quédate en México, have left over fifty thousand asylum seekers from around the world in legal limbo, subject to violence and homelessness. “No one can pass into the United States,” a director of a shelter for migrants in Mexico stated, “and so we have become the wall that Trump wants.”

How did we get here, and what can we do to help?

We reached out to Nicole Ramos, who is the Border Rights …