The El Paso murders killed at least six Mexican citizens, leading the government of Mexico to denounce how “xenophobic and racist discourse” contributed to this horror. In justifiably calling on the United States to improve its treatment of Mexicans north of their border, however, Mexico omits its own failures to resist anti-immigrant policies from the Trump administration.

A Mexican newspaper cartoon reacted to the U.S.-Mexico border pact announced in June by depicting Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard in a Border Patrol uniform, captioned “Gift of Trump.” Indeed, Mexico’s capitulation to Trump’s tariff threat was swift and devastating for asylum rights.

Trump has already deployed family separations, prolonged detention, expulsion of asylum seekers, and elimination of aid to Central America. Despite the pro-immigrant reputations of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as global outrage about dismally harmful detention conditions for families at the U.S.-Mexico border, the two leaders’ policy choices enable Trump and pass up opportunities to challenge his anti-Latino rhetoric and actions.

López Obrador abets the Trump administration’s mistreatment of asylum seekers by facilitating its “Remain in Mexico” and “metering” policies. Remain in Mexico returns asylum-seekers to Mexico to await their immigration court hearings now being scheduled for mid-2020 or beyond.

More than 28,000 people have so far been affected, forced to return to danger and squalor in Mexico where crimes like kidnapping are frequent and legal representation is impossible. Even before the sharp increase in returns after June’s agreement, more than 3,000 were identified as children, including a 4-year-old with special needs and 107 babies.

Mexico also facilitates a second illegal and dangerous U.S. policy: “metering” and turning away asylum seekers who attempt to apply for protection at land ports of entry. While Trump’s agents instruct migrants not to enter without authorization, asylum seekers are routinely turned away at official crossings for “capacity” reasons. Many people wait for weeks or months on lists maintained by Mexican officials, some of whom take bribes for preferred placement.

Canada, meanwhile, is renegotiating its Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. Currently, Canada prevents many immigrants from applying for asylum after being in the U.S., but an expanded agreement would bar those who enter by land between official crossing points.

Trudeau, who famously tweeted at refugees during Trump’s Muslim ban — “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you” — now echoes Trump in denouncing an asylum “loophole.” Indeed, his government recently enacted a provision blocking asylum seekers who applied in the U.S. and then enter Canada from regular procedures, relegating them to an inadequate “pre-removal risk assessment.” This despite numerous meritorious claims presented in Canada by asylum seekers unable to secure protection in the U.S., which is trying to reject domestic violence-based and other forms of persecution.

As a pending lawsuit in Toronto makes powerfully clear, the United States is anything but safe for asylum seekers. Indeed, official Trump administration policy — from the top down and the bottom up — is to slam America’s door on asylum seekers and keep Latinos in particular out. Trump is ruthlessly committed to ignoring violent, dire Central American realities as he vilifies all asylum-seekers and begins a re-election campaign that echoes his 2016 descriptions of Mexicans as “rapists” and “murderers.”

Fear of retaliatory trade measures has of course become a major factor in North American policymaking, including continental immigration issues. Throughout the past two and a half years of invective and divisiveness, however, Canada and Mexico have professed to adhere to value systems that recognize migrants’ humanity and rights in opposition to Trump’s words and deeds.

Yet, in practice, Remain in Mexico, metering, and Safe Third Country facilitate Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, reinforce his hateful pronouncements and stain all three countries’ reputations.

Canada and Mexico should find common, principled cause in protecting asylum seekers’ human rights. Trump will pass, but his administration’s racism and abuses are notoriously recorded for all time. Trudeau and López Obrador right now have opportunity and power to honour the El Paso tragedy and be remembered for fighting, not abetting, the U.S. government’s xenophobia.

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Chris Rickerd is a senior policy counsel in the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Political Advocacy Department.

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