Biden Administration Announces End to Title 42 Border Policy

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Friday that it will be terminating the Title 42 border policy. The U.S. government has used this policy to turn away asylum seekers and migrants over 1.7 million times since March 2020. The policy will end on May 23 to give the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) time to implement the termination. After May 23, individuals approaching the border will be processed normally as they were before Title 42 went into place.

Title 42 refers to an obscure public health law that allowed the government to invoke the COVID-19 pandemic to turn away people seeking refuge in the United States. Ending Title 42 is a critical step in reforming an asylum process that has been decimated over the last six years.

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5411-Biden-Announces-End-to-Title-42-Border-Policy.html

Collecting DNA From Asylum Seekers at the Border Raises Privacy Concerns

 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is collecting DNA from asylum seekers at the border, recent media reports confirm. This is the latest expansion of DNA collection as part of a program initiated under the Trump administration that targets nearly all immigrants in government custody. A growing number of noncitizens are being subjected to this invasive collection of sensitive personal information with little knowledge or understanding of how their information will be used or stored by the federal government.

While the southern border remains largely closed to asylum seekers due to the Biden administration’s continuation of the Title 42 expulsions policy, some families and particularly vulnerable individuals are being allowed to enter to pursue their claims. And it is this population that is being subjected to DNA collection as they enter the United States.

The Biden administration has continued this policy despite privacy concerns and no clear justification.

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5161-Collecting-DNA-From-Asylum-Seekers-at-the-Border.html

ICE Manipulate The Appropriations Process To Increase The Incarceration Of Immigrants

By Jorge Loweree www.immigrationimpact.com

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently notified Congress of its intent to pull $271 million dollars from FEMA, the Coast Guard, and TSA for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

DHS will use this money to increase immigration detention capacity and construct tent courthouses along the Texas border. The department is going through with this reallocation of funds despite Congress’ objections and ICE’s dismal record of caring for people already held in its custody.

This reallocation was made under the government funding bill that President Trump signed into law in January 2019, ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

When that bill passed, ICE was holding approximately 49,000 people in detention centers across the country. That was a record at the time. Appropriators in Congress explicitly instructed DHS to decrease detention levels to an average of 40,500 by the end of the fiscal year.

ICE successfully ignored the will of Congress, however, as the agency was reportedly holding an all-time high of 52,398 people in custody as of May. The agency is now projecting an average detainee population of 49,661 by the end of the fiscal year. DHS claims that the additional $271 million is necessary to deal with a rise in single adults crossing the southern border. The department is making this claim despite the fact that their own numbers indicate a significant decline in apprehensions across all demographics over the past five months.

This is not the first time the administration has pulled funds from various parts of the federal government in pursuit of its immigration enforcement priorities. President Trump declared a national emergency earlier this year to reallocate over $6 billion from the Departments of Defense and Treasury to pay for a border wall.

DHS similarly reprogrammed $200 million in 2018. This year, the reprogrammed funds will be pulled from several agencies within DHS, including FEMA, the Coast Guard, and TSA. $116 million will be reprogrammed to pay for ICE enforcement activities, including the addition of 9,000 detention beds across the country.

ICE is therefore continuing to increase its detention capacity at a time when numerous investigations by government and non-governmental organizations have made it clear that the agency is incapable of properly caring for people in its custody.

The administration has repeatedly claimed that detention is necessary to ensure that people appear for their hearings, but the reality is that immigrants and their families appear in court in high numbers. Meaningful alternatives to detention that allow people to navigate our immigration system in less punitive settings, while also ensuring that they appear in court, exist and should be used more broadly.

DHS will also pull $155 million from the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund for the creation of temporary tent courts for people who were subjected to the “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially named the Migrant Protection Protocols. This program requires asylum seekers who arrive at the southern border to await their immigration court hearings in Mexico. Immigration judges from other parts of the country will soon begin to issue decisions in hundreds of asylum cases per day in these courts by video, raising serious due process concerns.

It is also unclear how DHS can legally allocate money for the creation of these facilities given that immigration courts are part of the Department of Justice.

Congress will soon have an opportunity to revisit this issue as it debates DHS funding for FY 2020. Legislators should consider implementing a cap on immigration detention in order to prevent ICE’s manipulation of the appropriations process in the future.

 

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4444-money-to-increase-the-incarceration-of-immigrants.html

Tent Immigration Courthouses Are Being Built At The Texas Border

By Melissa Cruz www.immigrationimpact.com 

Immigration judges from across the country will soon be reassigned from their normal caseload to preside over thousands of immigration cases along the U.S.-Mexico border, reportedly in an effort to speed up hearings under the controversial “Remain in Mexico” program. 

To handle the cases faster, the Trump administration is in the process of building makeshift immigration courthouses out of tents in the border towns of Laredo and Brownsville, Texas. 

Immigration judges will conduct these hearings via video teleconferencing from their court rooms, while the individuals will reportedly appear for court in the tents. Contracted assistants will organize the hearings in person by taking roll call, sending case documents to judges, and operating the video systems. 

Over 1,000 people may appear at one of these two courts each day. This means that people who fled violence in their home countries and were then forced to wait in cartel-controlled Mexican towns will be allowed to enter the United States—and the tents—for their hearings. 

The challenges of using a tent for a courthouse include notoriously spotty video teleconferencing with a judge thousands of miles away, and the likelihood that few people will have access to an attorney to guide them through the process. This makes a person’s chance at receiving asylum protections even slimmer. It’s reported that only 1% of people subject to the Remain in Mexico program have been able to obtain a lawyer. 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials expect that around 150 immigration judges will be reassigned to handle the cases of asylum seekers and others who were forced to remain in Mexico while awaiting their U.S. immigration court case. More than 35,000 people have been sent back since Remain in Mexico’s implementation in January 2019. 

Removing judges off their regular dockets to process asylum cases at the border could also worsen the backlog of pending immigration cases. 

Judges will likely need to postpone their own hearings in order to prioritize these cases. This means immigration court cases around the country could be delayed for months or years. 

A former immigration judge under President Trump, Rebecca Jamil, told BuzzFeed News this shuffle could have a profound impact on those waiting for their court hearing outside of the border region: 

“Those families have been waiting for years to have their cases heard, and now will wait another two or three years, and due process is denied by the delay—evidence becomes stale, witnesses die, country conditions change.” 

It’s clear the Trump administration has devastated the U.S. asylum system and continues to disregard the basic due process rights of those seeking protection in the United States.

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4431-Tent-Immigration-Courthouses-Are-Being-Built.html

Syria Is Not Redesignated For TPS, Despite Ongoing Armed Conflict

By Melissa Cruz

After months of uncertainty, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Thursday that it will extend—but not redesignate—Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syria. This life-saving humanitarian program protects foreign nationals from being deported back to a country that is facing ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other temporarily dangerous conditions. 

The 18-month extension will exclusively offer protections to some 7,000 Syrian nationals legally residing in the United States. It does not, however, redesignate the country itself for TPS. The decision therefore excludes any Syrian nationals living in the United States not currently covered by TPS, particularly those who arrived here in the last three years. 

DHS had the choice to extend the program and redesignate Syria for TPS—the agency has done so nearly every time the country has come up for a decision since its initial designation in 2012. But by only offering an extension, the Trump administration is shutting out thousands of Syrian nationals who are now at risk of deportation back to a war-torn country. 

Syria was first designated for TPS in 2012 after violence erupted in the country. The Syrian government, led by Syrian President Bashar al Assad, began unleashing the military on civilians to suppress political demonstrations. Within a year, President Assad murdered 7,500 Syrians and internally displaced hundreds of thousands more. The government also conducted sweeping, indiscriminate arrests and frequency utilized torture. 

The crisis in Syria was then compounded by the rise of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL). The terrorist group went on to capture large swaths of Syria, and with the assistance of the Assad government, waged chemical weapon attacks, air strikes, and torture against the Syrian people. This resulted in widespread destruction, displacement, and food and water insecurity within the country. By 2018, at least 511,000 people had been killed and nearly 7 million were displaced. 

In a travel advisory released April 2019, the U.S. government warns: “No part of Syria is safe from violence. Kidnappings, the use of chemical warfare, shelling, and aerial bombardment pose significant risk of death or serious injury.”

Yet, the Trump administration’s decision to not redesignate TPS puts at least 7,000 more Syrian nationals right back into this conflict zone. President Trump’s repeated, unsuccessful attempts to end the entire program show blatant disregard for human life. Sending Syrian nationals back to their country amounts to a death sentence.

 

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4375-Syria-Is-Not-Redesignated-For-TPS.html

 

A Primer On Expedited Removal

Created in 1996, expedited removal is a process by which low-level immigration officers can quickly deport certain noncitizens who are undocumented or have committed fraud or misrepresentation. Since 2004, immigration officials have used expedited removal to deport individuals who arrive at our border, as well as individuals who entered without authorization if they are apprehended within two weeks of arrival and within 100 miles of the Canadian or Mexican border. 

On January 25, 2017, President Trump issued an executive order which directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to dramatically expand the use of “expedited removal” to its full statutory extent. n July 22, 2019, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would carry out the full expansion. As of July 23, 2019, expedited removal may be applied to individuals who are undocumented, or who have committed fraud or misrepresentation, and who are encountered within the entire United States and who have not been physically present in the United States for two years prior to apprehension. 

One of the major problems with expedited removal is that the immigration officer making the decision virtually has unchecked authority. When an immigration official encounters someone they believe may be subject to expedited removal, the burden of proof is on the individual to prove otherwise. This means that an individual believed to be subject to expedited removal will have the burden of proving to an immigration official that they have been physically present in the United States for two or more years or that they were legally admitted or paroled into the United States. 

Individuals subject to expedited removal rarely see the inside of a courtroom because they are not afforded a regular immigration court hearing before a judge. In essence, the immigration officer serves both as prosecutor and judge. Further, given the speed at which the process takes place, there is rarely an opportunity to collect evidence or consult with an attorney, family member, or friend before the decision is made. 

Such a truncated process means there is a greater chance that persons are being erroneously deported from the United States, potentially to imminent harm or death. Moreover, individuals who otherwise might qualify for deportation relief if they could defend themselves in immigration court are unjustly deprived of any opportunity to do so. Yet expedited removal has been increasingly applied in recent years; 35 percent of all removals from the United States were conducted through expedited removal in Fiscal Year (FY) 2017, the most recent government data available. A dramatic expansion, as directed by President Trump and implemented In July 2019, could result in thousands of additional deportations without due process. 


What the Law Says

“Expedited removal” refers to the legal authority given to even low-level immigration officers to order the deportation of some non-U.S. citizens without any of the due-process protections granted to most other people—such as the right to an attorney and to a hearing before a judge. The Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 created expedited removal, but the federal government subsequently expanded it significantly. 

As it now stands, immigration officers can summarily order the removal of nearly any foreign national who arrives at the border without proper documents; additionally, undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States 14 days or less since entering without inspection are subject to expedited removal if an immigration officer encounters them within 100 miles of the U.S. border with either Mexico or Canada. As a general rule, however, DHS applies expedited removal to only those Mexican and Canadian nationals with histories of criminal or immigration violations, as well as persons from other countries who are transiting through Mexico or Canada. There is no right to appeal an immigration officer’s decision to deport someone via expedited removal. Individuals in expedited removal are detained until removed. 

By law, expedited removal may not be applied to certain individuals. U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (LPRs, or “green card” holders) should not be subject to expedited removal. Nor should it be used against refugees, asylees, or asylum seekers (people who fear persecution in their home countries or indicate an intention to apply for asylum). 

Asylum seekers are instead referred to an asylum officer for an interview to determine if they have a “credible fear” of persecution. If an individual has been previously deported, an asylum officer determines if the person has a “reasonable fear” of persecution—a higher standard than “credible fear.” If the asylum officer fails to find that the person has a credible or reasonable fear of return, that person is ordered removed. Before deportation, the individual may challenge the asylum officer’s adverse finding by requesting a hearing before an immigration judge, who must review the case “to the maximum extent practicable within 24 hours, but in no case later than 7 days….” The judge’s review is limited solely to assessing whether the individual’s fear is credible or reasonable. 

Individuals found to have a credible or reasonable fear of persecution are detained pending further review of their asylum case. In limited circumstances, these individuals may be paroled—that is, released from detention—and permitted to remain in the United States while their asylum case is pending. 

Until January 2017, an exception to expedited removal had been made for “an alien who is a native or citizen of a country in the Western Hemisphere with whose government the United States does not have full diplomatic relations and who arrives by aircraft at a port of entry.” Cubans arriving by aircraft had been exempted from expedited removal under this provision, but in the closing days of the Obama administration, DHS published a regulation eliminating Cuban nationals from the exemption 


Use of Expedited Removal Is on the Rise

The use of expedited removal to deport people has risen substantially over the past two decades, peaking in FY 2013 when approximately 193,000 persons were deported from the United States through expedited removal, which represented 43 percent of the 438,000 removals from the United States that year. After 2013, the number of people deported from the United States through expedited removal fell, likely as a result of more asylum seekers who were found to have a credible fear of persecution. However, expedited removal still accounted for 35 percent of all deportations in FY2017. 
Fig. 1 Expedited Removals FY 2001-2017

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2010-2017; U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 2000 Statistical Yearbook, chp. 6. 


Concerns about Expedited Removal

Erroneous Deportations 

There are few checks on the authority of immigration officers to place non-citizens in expedited removal proceedings. In essence, the law permits the immigration officer to serve both as prosecutor (charged with enforcing the law) and judge (rendering a final decision on the case). Generally, the entire process consists of an interview with the inspecting officer, so there is little or no opportunity to consult with an attorney or to gather any evidence that might prevent deportation. For those who are traumatized from their journey or harm they fled, the short timelines can make it extremely difficult to clearly explain why they need protection in the United States. The abbreviated process increases the likelihood that a person who is not supposed to be subject to expedited removal—such as a U.S. citizen or LPR—will be erroneously removed. Moreover, individuals who otherwise would be eligible to make a claim for “relief from removal” (to argue they should be permitted to stay in the United States) may be unjustly deprived of any opportunity to pursue relief. For example, a witness or victim of a crime might be eligible for status but is prohibited from making such a claim in expedited removal proceedings. 

Inadequate Protection of Asylum Seekers 

In practice, not all persons expressing a fear of persecution if returned to their home countries are provided a credible or reasonable fear screening. Studies by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) noted that, in some cases, immigration officers pressured individuals expressing fear into withdrawing their application for admission—and thus their request for asylum—despite DHS policies forbidding the practice. In other cases, government officers failed to ask if the arriving individual feared return. In addition, the Commission found that the government did not have sufficient quality assurance mechanisms in place to ensure that asylum seekers were not improperly being turned back.

A Growing Backlog of Asylum Applications 

Individuals expressing fear of return who are diverted from expedited removal are referred to asylum officers for screening. These officers are often the same corps handling affirmative asylum applications (i.e., cases filed by individuals not in removal proceedings). Since these asylum seekers are detained pending completion of the credible or reasonable fear process, their cases are prioritized by the government. Asylum Office resources are therefore diverted to these interviews, contributing to the backlog of affirmative asylum cases. 

Further expansion of expedited removal will require significantly more asylum officers, or the backlog of affirmative asylum cases will continue to grow. This workload management crisis could be avoided entirely if DHS personnel placed all asylum seekers apprehended at the border in regular immigration court proceedings and paroled them pending their hearings. Providing the immigration court system with enough funds to sufficiently staff immigration judge teams would help ensure that asylum seekers get a prompt court hearing. 

Source: American Immigration Council 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4360-A-Primer-On-Expedited-Removal.html

Certain Detained Asylum Seekers Must Receive a Bond Hearing Within 7 Days, Judge Orders

Written by Kristin Macleod-Ball

Asylum seekers are often imprisoned in immigration detention for weeks or months before they can ask a judge to release them, even though they’re entitled to bond hearings. But this injustice may soon be corrected for some asylum seekers. 

On Friday, a U.S. district court judge ruled that certain detained asylum seekers must receive a bond hearing within seven days of requesting one. The Seattle judge also ordered that immigration courts must provide legal protections at the hearings. 

The ruling in the Padilla v. ICE case is a defeat for the Trump administration. It strikes a blow against the ongoing campaign to punish and deter migrants from seeking asylum. 

Judge Marsha J. Peckman ordered the immigration courts to: 

• Provide certain detained asylum seekers with a bond hearing within 7 days of requesting one.
• Put the burden of proof on the Department of Homeland Security—not the asylum seekers—to justify continued detention.
• Record or provide a transcript of the hearings.
• Issue a written decision that explains why an immigration judge decides to grant or deny bond at the time the decision is made.

The case is a nationwide class action brought by detained asylum seekers. The decision, which grants their motion for a preliminary injunction, applies to all detained asylum seekers who entered the United States between ports of entry and then passed an initial screening on their asylum claims called a credible fear interview. The American Immigration Council and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project represent the asylum seekers. 

This order could drastically change the situation of thousands of detained asylum seekers. Many would no longer need to wait for weeks or months to get a bond hearing. 

The order would also put in place important legal protections. Currently, even once they receive bond hearings, asylum seekers are at a disadvantage. They are often unable to gather evidence or obtain legal representation to help with their bond requests while behind bars. Yet, the courts still require they bear the burden of proof to show why they should be released. 

Under this system, asylum seekers also are often left in the dark about why their bond requests are denied. Bond hearings are not generally recorded. Judges also don’t have to explain in writing why they denied bond until after an immigrant has already appealed the decision. This creates serious problem for asylum seekers trying to appeal bond denials. 

These unfair practices leave many immigrants incarcerated during the entire, lengthy asylum process. Immigrants forced to stay in detention are less likely to succeed in their asylum cases. Some may even give up valid claims to remain in the United States to get out of unsafe detention conditions . 

The ruling is set to take effect within 30 days. However, the government could appeal the decision to a higher court or take other steps to prevent it from going into effect in those 30 days. 

This decision is still a first step towards ensuring asylum seekers have access to prompt, fair bond hearings.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4103-Asylum-Seekers-Must-Receive-a-Bond-Hearing-Within-7-Days.html

Immigrants Are Regularly Kept Locked Up For Months After Deportation Orders

Written by Kristin Macleod-Ball

When the U.S. government orders that an immigrant in its custody must be deported, the person isn’t supposed to remain incarcerated for long. Yet the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) often does not deport people promptly. This means thousands of people suffer in detention for months after they’re ordered deported. 

This is what the DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found in a report earlier this month. 

The federal watchdog looked at the cases of everyone in DHS custody with removal orders on a single day. Immigration law generally requires that DHS deport people within 90 days after a final removal order. But DHS held 3,053—almost a quarter of the people in custody with final removal orders—for longer than that. When OIG checked back in on those people three months later, it found that 1,284 were still detained. 

More than 1,000 immigrants were still locked up more than 6 months after they received their final removal orders. 

Almost 20 years ago, in a case called Zadvydas v. Davis, the Supreme Court ruled immigrants with final removal orders can’t be forced to stay in detention for an unlimited period of time. Even if the government can’t physically deport someone from the United States, the person can’t sit in jail indefinitely just because of their removal order. 

If deportation is not foreseeable, it’s usually considered unreasonable to keep a person jailed for more than 6 months after a removal order. There is an exception for people who haven’t been deported because they are challenging a removal order in the courts. Many of the people described in the OIG report were still in detention for this reason. However, others stayed detained for months because DHS or foreign governments delayed getting necessary travel documents or flight arrangements. 

Forty percent of the people detained for at least 90 days after their removal orders were held because of this type of government-created delay. 300 of them were still in DHS custody 3 months after that. 

While the OIG report’s findings are disheartening, they are not surprising. Under the Trump administration, DHS has expanded its capacity to detain immigrants. Currently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains 48,000 immigrants every day. President Trump has requested funding to increase immigration detention even more. 

 

Regardless of the reason for the prolonged detention, it should not be regular DHS practice to incarcerate immigrants for months after they are ordered removed. Immigration detention is a form of civil detention—meaning it is not a form of punishment for any unlawful conduct. Keeping people locked up because they are exercising their legal rights to challenge their deportation or because of government-created delays is unjust. 

Fuente: www.immigrationimpact.com/

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4080-Immigrants-Are-Kept-Locked-Up-After-Deportation-Orders.html

Written by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Citing high rates of visa overstays, on January 18 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a new rule mostly barring nationals from the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, and Ethiopia from receiving certain temporary worker visas. The U.S. territory of Guam is likely to be most impacted as it relies on large numbers of Filipino workers. 

The new restrictions apply to two types of visas: H-2A visas for temporary or seasonal agricultural workers, and H-2B visas for temporary or seasonal non-agricultural workers. An employer petitioning for a worker to come on an H-2A or H-2B visa must show that the planned work is truly temporary or seasonal and there are not enough U.S. workers available to do the work. 

Only foreign nationals from countries that DHS has designated as “participating countries” are eligible for these visas. Ever year DHS and the Department of State evaluate the list of participating countries to determine whether they still meet the criteria for inclusion. 

DHS may remove a country it has previously designated as “participating” if nationals from that country tend to overstay the period of time they are authorized to be in the country. DHS also may remove a country from the participating list if the country does not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in accepting deportations. 

Citing its own data, DHS estimated that Filipino workers on H-2B visas overstayed their authorized stay nearly 40 percent of the time. In addition, because there were serious concerns about trafficking of Filipino workers, DHS banned workers from that country from H-2A visas as well. 

DHS similarly revoked eligibility for nationals from the Dominican Republic for H-2B visas based on a 30 percent overstay rate. However, these nationals were not barred from receiving H-2A visas, based on a much lower overstay rate of ten percent. 

Ethiopia, by comparison, was removed from the list of participating countries as a result of its refusal to accept all deportees. In 2016, ICE designated Ethiopia “at risk of non-compliance” with ICE’s deportation demands. While DHS acknowledged that Ethiopia had made strides towards accepting more deportations since 2016, it chose to make Ethiopian nationals ineligible for H-2A and H-2B visas since it is no longer considered “at risk of non-compliance” with ICE. 

Importantly, nationals from these countries are not entirely barred from entering on H-2 visas. The petitioning employer would have to convince U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that the foreign worker’s entry would be in the national interest. In addition, certain military construction projects on Guam are exempt from the restrictions under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019. 

The visa restrictions on Filipinos appear most likely to affect Guam. Business organizations in the territory expressed surprise at the announcement and a concern about how the island would be affected. Filipino workers on H-2B visas make up the majority of foreign workers who are brought in for construction projects in Guam. Some on the island are worried that this new announcement could lead to delays in construction projects and a possibility of lost investment. 

Under the new announcement, current H-2A and H-2B workers from those countries are unaffected but cannot apply to extend their stay or change their visa status. However, the new restrictions go into effect immediately for 2019, which will likely affect the record number of H-2A and H-2B petitions filed in early January.

 

 

Fuente: www.immigrationimpact.com  

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4002-Blocks-H2B-Visas-For-Filipinos-Dominicans-And-Ethiopians.html

President Trump's Asylum Ban Is Illegal And Solves Nothing

Written by Royce Murray

In response to a much over-hyped caravan of migrants slowly trekking north through Mexico, the Trump administration announced new rules to block people from applying for asylum if they cross between the ports of entry along the Southern border. The rules take effect immediately, setting the stage for an utterly avoidable crisis that will put people’s lives at risk. 

The asylum ban was made through two bureaucratic steps. First, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice jointly published an interim regulation that creates a new bar to asylum. 

President Trump then issued an accompanying proclamation that applies to anyone who has entered the United States along the Southern border between the ports of entry. Those who defy the proclamation will be denied the opportunity to seek asylum. The change does not apply to individuals who enter between ports of entry on the Northern border or to unaccompanied children who enter without a parent. 

This asylum ban is illegal. 

U.S. law clearly states that any person who arrives in the United States—whether or not at a port of entry—can apply for asylum. 

Many individuals who enter between the ports of entry and seek asylum do so because their alternatives are limited. Some at imminent risk of grave harm are desperate to get protection from the closest possible place along the U.S. border—which may not be a port of entry. 

Although the proclamation directs asylum seekers to ports of entry, many who have tried to approach an official port of entry have been turned away or told that the port is full. This generates weeks-long waits in precarious conditions on the Mexico side of the border. Those who cannot afford the risk of waiting often cross between the ports and immediately present themselves to a DHS official to ask for asylum. 

Within hours of the proclamation’s announcement, advocates challenged the government’s issuance of the rules without providing the public advanced notice and an opportunity to comment on it, as well as the ways in which the asylum ban violates the clear letter of the law. 

It is legal to seek asylum. Congress clearly established that it is legal to do so between the ports of entry. No stroke of the presidential pen can change that. 

Instead of restricting asylum and placing people’s lives at risk, we have to strengthen pathways that allow for orderly migration and protection. Robust refugee processing will allow those fearing for their lives to apply from abroad and improved capacity of the Mexican asylum system will expand the availability of options. 

Until root causes of violence and instability that make people flee are fully addressed, we should expect that deterrence measures like these will not prevent people at risk from seeking safe haven. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3943-Asylum-Ban-Is-Illegal-And-Solves-Nothing.html