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Say No to Ending Asylum in the United States
Posted on Jul 15 2019
July 15, 2019 – The new rule posted by the Trump administration effectively ends asylum in the United States. This blatant violation of human rights and U.S. and international law cannot be allowed to stand.
“We are totally abrogating our international responsibilities through this regulation,” said Lenore Millibergity, interim executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). “We are condemning people who are in fear of their lives to possible death. Every time that the United States has denied asylum to entire classes of desperate refugees in the past, we have had to look back in shame at such decisions. We must say no to this inhumane and illegal attempt to end asylum in the United States.”
The new regulation says that any asylum seekers coming through a third country will be barred from applying for asylum in the United States. That means only Mexicans, Canadians, and people arriving in small boats or swimming to our shores would be allowed to apply for asylum.
This regulation makes a mockery of U.S. asylum law, which says that time spent in a third country only bars people passing through a designated “safe third country” or having “firmly resettled” in a third country. Neither Mexico nor any Central American country is designated as a “safe third country” for the very good reason that none of these countries is safe.
Despite the dangers asylum-seekers face, this administration’s inhumane and illegal “Remain in Mexico” policy already sends them back to danger in Mexico. According to Doctors Without Borders, “more than 45 percent of 378 patients treated by MSF in Nuevo Laredo [between January and May] have suffered at least one episode of violence in the city, as they waited to cross into the US.” U.S. immigration authorities send vulnerable refugee families to Tamaulipas, despite U.S. State Department warnings of crime and kidnappings there. The State Department warnings advise against all travel in Tamaulipas, placing the state at the same risk level as Syria and Afghanistan.
“Neither this appalling new regulation nor the inhumane ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy can stand,” Millibergity said. “The courts must act, and swiftly, to protect not only asylum seekers but also the rule of law in the United States.”