Forced to give birth in the mud: Asylum seekers help deliver baby at Mexican migrant camp

Under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) programme, asylum seekers have been forced to wait for months in Mexican border towns, reports Chantal da Silva

Asylum seekers wash clothes in river by Matamoros camp on 8 Dec 2019 - At least 50 percent of the asylum seekers still waiting at the camp are children under the age of 15 (Getty)

Asylum seekers at a migrant camp in the Mexican border town of Matamoros had to band together to help deliver a baby after an expectant mother at the encampment went into labour.  

By the time Consuelo Herrera, a Guatemalan asylum seeker living at the camp with her husband, Pedro, and their young son, began to experience contractions, it was too late to try to reach a hospital.

Instead, fellow asylum seekers helped her lie down on the ground, just by the edge of the Rio Grande, as they talked her through the harrowing experience, while volunteers helping operate the camp called an ambulance.  

Before emergency responders could arrive, however, Consuelo was able to give birth on Wednesday to her newborn daughter, with the help of other asylum seekers. In a video shared with The Independent, the mother can be seen recovering in the arms of a friend, as her newborn wails.  

Under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) programme, asylum seekers like the Herreras, whose real surnames have been withheld over fears of retribution, have been forced to wait for months in Mexican border towns like Matamoros while their asylum applications are considered in the U.S.  

The Herreras had hoped that their young family would have been granted asylum in the U.S. by now, after arriving at the Matamoros camp nearly a year ago. However, they have continued to be left waiting at the encampment and with the coronavirus pandemic having brought the asylum process to much of a standstill, it could be months still, if not longer, before their asylum claims are considered.  

For Pedro, the memory of the day his daughter was born will always be bittersweet, with the Guatemalan asylum seeker asserting that the terrifying incident was one that his wife never should have had to go through.

“The truth is that the birth of my daughter was not good because she was born on the ground here and that should not have been,” Herrera said. “I just thank God that my daughter and my wife are okay,” he said.

For Carlos Garcia, a 47-year-old father who made the journey to the US-Mexico border from El Salvador, with his wife and two young children, the experience was one he will never forget.

“Just imagine what it would feel like to be powerless while watching a woman almost on the brink of death and not being able to do anything other than watch,” said Garcia, whose last name has also been changed over fears that speaking out could harm his own asylum application.

“She had to give birth to her beautiful baby on the muddy ground in the middle of the camp,” he said.  

Speaking with The Independent, Andrea Leiner, the strategic operations director of Global Response Management, an organization providing support to asylum seekers on the ground, confirmed that a baby had been born at the camp at around 9a.m. local time.  

An ambulance arrived following the delivery, Leiner said, and GRM responders “helped get mom and baby loaded and taken to hospital.”

“They will spend the night there for observation and we will follow up on their discharge care,” she said.  

In the more than 14 months that Garcia has been living at the Matamoros encampment, he said he has seen dozens of pregnant women forced to wait at the camp for months under the MPP program. However, Wednesday was the first that he witnessed a pregnant mother being left with no choice but to give birth at the camp.  

For the 47-year-old father, the incident highlights the true “cruelty” of the MPP program.

“I think that families with young children and expectant mothers should be given priority for help,” Garcia said. “It would be good for us to get the opportunity to leave the camp and improve the lives of our families.”

However, he said he believes no asylum seekers seeking for refuge in the U.S. should be forced to wait in squalid border camps for months on end, particularly in Matamoros, a border town with a level 4 “do not travel” advisory from the U.S. State Department due to high rates of crime and kidnapping.

In a recent report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed that it had documented hundreds of alleged incidents in which asylum seekers forced to remain in Mexico under the MPP programme reported facing extortion, physical or sexual violence and torture while waiting for their asylum applications to be considered in the U.S.

“It is outrageous that a law that has no foundation has us in this situation, where the amount of suffering is so disastrous for us all,” he said. “All those who are in favour of us being here, well, God will decide on their payment sooner or later.”

As long as the Trump administration is in power, however, Garcia said he believes the MPP program is here to stay.  

“After what happened [on Wednesday],” Garcia said, “I just keep thinking about the cruel heart of the current government and how it does nothing but run over Central American foreigners.”

To an asylum seeker forced to remain on the outside looking in, he said: “It seems they would prefer to cause harm, rather than think about helping others.”

He and other asylum seekers told The Independent that many of those forced to wait in Mexico under the MPP program have been closely watching the U.S. election race, eager to see Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden win.  

If elected into office, Biden has vowed to overturn the hardline immigration policies brought in under President Donald Trump, starting with the MPP program, which the former Vice President has vowed to rescind within his first 100 days in office.  

“We can do nothing on our own other than endure what we can until we can get help and Biden wins,” Garcia said.

The White House has been contacted for comment.