CARECEN attorney Siomara Umana is heading to the Southwest border this weekend to help refugee families stranded in Tijuana by Donald Trump’s illegal denial of the right to apply for asylum. Siomara works at CARECEN every day helping Central Americans who fled gangs in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Now she wants to provide legal aid on-site at the U.S./Mexican Border.
“I will be arriving in Mexico just after Donald Trump does his press event at the Border,” she said on Tuesday. She expects the already difficult humanitarian situation of Central American refugees stranded in northern Mexico to get even worse after the president speaks on Thursday. Siomara will be travelling with former CARECEN attorney Perla Solis. The two lawyers will help the small non-profit Al Otro Lado screen refugees, prepare them for interviews with Homeland Security staff and accompany them to the border for their presentations to U.S. asylum officers.
“I decided that I had to go when I heard that the president was going to stop asylum seekers from applying for admission to the United States,” Siomara told me, “I see the atrocities that are happening to these poor people, including the deaths of children.” She said that as the child of Salvadoran immigrants, “I can relate to what they are going through.”
The two lawyers still need help funding the travel for their trip. Please donate. Here is the link to their GoFundMe page.
