There are already a record number of migrants dying at the US southern border – and it’s about to get worse.
President Joe Biden’s new “asylum ban” will not only lead to more deaths, it will also enrich criminal cartels and force more refugees back to the dangers they were trying to escape.
The new, awful policy is replacing the old awful policy of the Trump administration, which was based on an obscure, 75-year-old public health law known as “Title 42” to drive no-questions-asked expulsions at the border. A federal judge said the use of Title 42 was causing “irreparable harm” to asylum seekers and was unlawful.
Biden’s team fought hard to keep Trump’s policy going, but the end of the public health emergency spelled the end of authorities being able to rely on Title 42.
The end of Title 42 has sparked increased interest among asylum seekers and migrants trying to head to the US. And, as night follows day, fear-mongering TV news channels in the US are manufacturing panic in suburban living rooms with dehumanizing images of desperate people and apocalyptic messages about “hordes” and “floods.”
Let’s get back to basics. These are people. And they have rights.
We all have the right to apply for asylum abroad. This does NOT mean we all have a right to live in any country we want, whenever we want. It means that, when we’re facing danger back home, we have the right to ask for asylum in another country and have our case heard fairly by the appropriate authorities.
But the Biden administration – again recycling Trump-era tricks – is pushing asylum seekers to get an appointment through the US border agency’s cellphone app, “CBP One,” which is nearly impossible. Appointments are extremely limited and usually book up within minutes.
Day after day, asylum seekers try to get a spot through the app. It can take months.
Meanwhile, they’re waiting in dangerous conditions inside Mexico at the border, where asylum seekers have experienced kidnapping, rape, extortion, and other abuses by organized crime and Mexican officials.
And if you try crossing without an appointment, Biden’s policy is to immediately send you back to Mexico, to those known dangers – which is actually illegal, by the way – and bar you from entering the US for five years.
Perhaps the worst part of all this is, the Biden administration had more than two years to prepare for this moment and the end of “Title 42.” Biden could have followed through on his campaign promises to develop more humane solutions.
But no.
Instead, they dithered and simply recycled one abusive Trump policy after another, creating a new “asylum ban” and leaving desperate people to pay the price.
