Las Americas Opposes Negotiations Trading Migrant Lives for Political Gain

For Immediate Release: November 28, 2023

“It is imperative that we treat all individuals with the dignity and humanity they deserve”

EL PASO, TEXAS – In response to reports that a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators are holding Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan funding hostage by demanding extreme lasting changes on immigration policy on the supplemental funding bill, including poison pills that would gut the asylum system and create chaos at the border, Marisa Limón Garza, Executive Director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and New Mexico, said:

“Gutting our asylum system and simultaneously undermining legal pathways like parole, as Sens. Murphy, Bennet and Lankford are suggesting, is not just counter productive, it is actively self-defeating. This approach will create chaos in borderland communities doing the work of welcoming, put migrants at greater risk of exploitation, abuse, and death, and actually strengthen the operations of transnational criminal organizations at the border. 

“In fact, the whole focus on the asylum system is misplaced; the Senate should be looking for solutions that bolster existing legal pathways to migrate, and create new ones, like temporary work permits, so that immigrants don't see asylum as the only option available to them. These are the sorts of measures that will actually make the U.S.-Mexico border the orderly, safe, and humane place Americans want it to be.

“From our perspective, rooted in communities and work on both sides of the border, we uniquely understand the dangers facing asylum seekers and the need to respond with compassion to their trauma. We also uniquely understand how decades of harsh enforcement approaches have failed, both on their own terms and to meet these basic human needs. It is imperative that we treat all individuals with the dignity and humanity they deserve, rather than standing by cruelty and hatred as a political bargain. Politicians from both sides must put aside their agendas and work together to fix our country's broken immigration system. Lives depend on it.”