BREAKING: Biden Admin Signs Executive Order Restricting Asylum, Echoing Previous Administration’s Campaign Against People Seeking Safety
EL PASO, TEXAS— Today, President Biden announced an executive order to partially suspend asylum processing for persons crossing the southern border between ports of entry when such crossings exceed 2500 per day. In response, Marisa Limón Garza, Executive Director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and New Mexico, said:
“Today’s decision clearly illustrates that this administration is ignoring lessons from the failed deterrence measures put in place by its predecessors. Being strong on immigration doesn’t require an assault on asylum seekers or cruelty toward people seeking protection at our southern border. The Biden Administration doesn’t need to rely on harsh deterrence tactics like Trump’s failed Muslim travel ban and Latino Ban, which were also created to close the doors on refugees and send families back to the violent conditions they fought to escape. Together, these policies represent a concerning trend of political manipulation and irresponsible immigration practices. This does nothing to mitigate the violence and family separations, ignores due process, and moves us away from a humane, safe, and orderly system, inevitably forcing migrants into the hands of cartels and traffickers.
“Las Americas stands in complete opposition to this and any measure that keeps vulnerable people in precarity at our borders. Instead of this cruelty, our country needs policies rooted in a more person-centered response at the southern border. We stand ready to contribute our insights and suggestions toward those real solutions.”
Additional Information About the Executive Order: Under this new order, vulnerable persons will be subject to greatly expanded expedited removal with access only to limited, lesser forms of relief provided through Withholding of Removal and/or the Convention Against Torture. Per the order, the changes it makes are grounded in section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act; notably, similar Trump-era restrictions to asylum access implemented under this section were found unlawful and blocked by federal courts. This executive order will not affect individuals traveling through ports of entry.