On Monday, the Biden administration announced that it would make permanent the rules it put in place in June that further restrict access to asylum at the border. Over the last three months, we have seen just how inhumane these new restrictions are. The Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project condemns the new finalized rule and renews its calls for positive, proactive policy solutions to address the challenges we face at the southern border.
The latest rules, set to go into effect at midnight on Tuesday, will effectively shut off access to asylum for most asylum seekers when apprehensions between ports cross a certain threshold. The new finalized rule will now count all unaccompanied children toward the weekly average numbers of apprehensions. With the government continuing to condition the lifting this policy only on low numbers of apprehensions not seen in many years, it is likely there is no end in sight to the policy.
“We have seen hundreds of families and victims of persecution turned away at the border because of this new policy’s requirement that they affirmatively raise a fear of return to their country of origin. Even though our clients tell us that they have repeatedly told government agents that they are afraid, they are still being summarily removed (deported) without any qualified person listening to their fear claim and evaluating whether they may qualify for asylum,” said Chelsea Sachau, Managing Attorney of the Florence Project’s Border Action Team.
We urge the President to instead pursue policy solutions that would provide support to people in need and achieve the Biden administration’s goals at the border:
- Protect people seeking asylum at the U.S. border: Providing timely access to safety at ports of entry is one of the most effective ways to reduce irregular border crossing. The Biden administration should dramatically increase staffing at ports of entry to enable ports to process more migrants each day.
- Invest in legal representation for all people who are navigating an immigration case: People with legal representation almost always show up for their court dates, and legal representation improves the orderly function of the court system and case outcomes in every measurable way, reducing backlogs by ensuring that immigrants have access to a meaningful process for their claims from the beginning.
- Make the immigration system fairer and more efficient: Massive backlogs, caused by years of underfunding, force people to wait in limbo for months or years for results in their cases. The government should invest in properly staffing immigration courts and USCIS offices to fairly and timely decide cases and should eliminate red tape that prevents people from working lawfully to support themselves while going through their legal process.
- Fund shelters and humanitarian reception sites: The government should better fund nonprofits providing humanitarian reception services for recently arrived migrants. Up-front, consistent funding, instead of the reimbursement models that currently exist, would allow organizations to plan and more effectively provide food, shelter, and transitional services to people even as overall migration patterns shift over time. This would also connect people to community-based legal services and support programs rather than punitive, expensive, and inhumane immigration detention.
The Florence Project continues to call on the Biden administration and all our elected leaders to stand firm in our values and with the majority of Americans who support a robust, functional asylum system and choose policies that center the humanity of migrants and welcome people seeking asylum with dignity.