11/30/23

Tell your Senators: Do NOT trade asylum for emergency funding!

We need specific outreach to Senators Schumer (NY), Gillibrand (NY), Bennet (CO), and Murphy (CT), but ALL Senators should confirm they will safeguard asylum!

Here is our statement, written by Camilo Antonio Perez Bustillo.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1svu5_dGHgppeU-Dzt4DK1MUwmtdYb6BL/edit

Witness at the Border joins with the National Lawyers Guild (San Francisco Bay Area chapter) in opposition to proposed changes in border and asylum policy as part of congressional debate over the proposed supplemental funding bill. These proposed measures violate both US and international law, and are especially outrageous and unacceptable because of their denial of the US’ responsibility for addressing the root causes of ongoing processes of forced migration throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. 

They also take yet another step in the direction of transferring the burden of enforcement of US immigration policy to Mexican authorities and territory, at the same time as increasing numbers of Mexican citizens are fleeing for safety amid the intensifying violence of the drug war and spiraling human rights violations driven by US policy imperatives.

The proposed bill seeks to revive some of the worst aspects of the Trump era such as updated equivalents of Title 42 and “Remain in Mexico”, plus continued construction of the border wall, increased deployment and retention of the Border Patrol, restoration of DNA testing at the border, and new limitations on eligibility for humanitarian parole and on how long such relief can be granted.

These measures would also further restrict and undermine provisions for asylum by imposing a “safe third country” rule and raising the bar for determining “credible fear” in such cases.