Alex Padilla U.S. Senator for California

The lawmakers emphasized that immigration actions should not come at the expense of fulfilling our commitment to restore and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), along with Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.-14), Greg Casar (D-Texas-35), and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.-07), today led a bicameral group of nearly 80 lawmakers in a letter urging President Joe Biden to reverse his administration’s expansion of the failed border policy known as Title 42 and to abandon the proposed asylum “transit ban” rule. The lawmakers also encouraged the President and his administration to work with Congress to ensure they develop safe, humane, and orderly border policies that enforce our immigration laws and uphold the right to asylum under domestic and international law.

“The administration’s announced border enforcement actions circumvent [domestic and international] law by not only expanding Title 42 beyond what is required by any court but by further implementing policies to deter and penalize people exercising their legal right to seek asylum at the border,” wrote the bicameral group of lawmakers to President Biden. “…We are therefore distressed by the deeply inconsistent choice to expand restrictions on asylum seekers after your administration determined it was no longer necessary for public health. Title 42 circumvents domestic law and international law. Human rights groups have extensively documented more than 10,000 violent attacks – including kidnappings, serious assaults, and deaths – against individuals who were expelled to or blocked in Mexico due to Title 42 since the beginning of your administration, with a disproportionate impact on Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, and Indigenous migrants.”

“We are further concerned by the administration’s announcement that it will be issuing a proposed rulemaking in the coming days that would require asylum seekers to first apply for asylum in a transit country instead of allowing them to seek their legal right to asylum at our southern border. This, in effect, is a transit ban. The courts rightly rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to categorically end asylum when he similarly required asylum seekers to seek asylum in transit countries,” added the lawmakers. “Specifically, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Trump-Era Third Country Transit ban violated well-settled U.S. asylum laws that prohibit turning people away unless they have “firmly resettled” in a transit country, especially not if conditions in the transit country are not safe… At the time of this ruling, countries across the Western Hemisphere were unable to meet such requirements. There does not appear to be evidence to show that country conditions in transit countries have improved since the relevant appellate decision was rendered as to justify a new Third Country Transit bar. As the administration well knows, current conditions in Mexico – the primary transit country – cannot ensure safety for the families seeking refuge in the United States.”

“It is unconscionable that asylum seekers have no option but to sleep in the streets of El Paso, in overcrowded shelters in Juarez, or in tents in Reynosa, but new asylum restrictions against migrants will not solve this problem. We believe that your administration can and must continue to expand legal pathways for migrants and refugees into the United States – without further dismantling the right to seek asylum at our border. This right is a pillar of the post-war international order to which the United States has committed itself. We are ready to work with you to ensure that we can have a safe, humane, and orderly border that upholds the right to asylum,” concluded the lawmakers.

In addition to Padilla, Menendez, Booker, Luján, Ocasio-Cortez, Casar, and Grijalva, the letter is signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) as well as Representatives Jesús G. “Chuy” García (D-Ill.-04), Juan Vargas (D-Calif.-52), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.-12), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.-13), Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.-44), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.-12), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.-09), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.-16), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.-At-Large), Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.-07), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.-04), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.-09), Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas-29), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.-07), Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.-29), Judy Chu (D-Calif.-28), Lou Correa (D-Calif.-46), Cori Bush (D-Mo.-01), Grace Meng (D-N.Y.-06), Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.-10), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.-12), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.-20), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas-20), Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.-24), Adam Smith (D-Wash.-09), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.-05), Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.-13), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.02), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.-11), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.-34), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.-07), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.-04), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.-03), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine-01), Dwight Evans (D-Penn.-03), Becca Balint (D-Vt.-At-Large), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.-31), Mark Takano (D-Calif.-39), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.-06), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.-42), Betty McCollum (D-Minn.-04), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.-03), Doris Matsui (D-Calif.-07), Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.-03), Norma Torres (D-Calif.-35), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.-10), Rob Menendez (D-N.J.-08), Danny Davis (D-Ill.-07), Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.-10), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.-37), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.-02), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.-30), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.-36), Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii-02), Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.-15), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.-38), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.-03), Alma Adams (D-N.C.-12), Lori Trahan (D-Mass.-03), Katie Porter (D-Calif.-47), and Summer Lee (D-Penn.-12).

Full text of letter can be found here and below:

Dear President Biden:

We write to express our great concern over the new asylum restrictions announced by your administration. While we applaud the creation of new legal pathways for Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans modeled off the existing parole programs for Venezuelans, it is disappointing that these pathways come at the expense of the legal right to seek asylum at the southern border. Instead of issuing a new asylum transit ban and expanding Title 42, we encourage your administration to stand by your commitment to restore and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.

The right to seek asylum is enshrined in domestic and international law. Four decades ago, the Senate unanimously codified the protections of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Congress further made clear that seeking asylum at the border, “whether or not at a designated port of arrival,” is lawful. The administration’s announced border enforcement actions circumvent this law by not only expanding Title 42 beyond what is required by any court but by further implementing policies to deter and penalize people exercising their legal right to seek asylum at the border.

Last year, we welcomed your administration’s announcement that it would move to end Title 42, and we continue to support your efforts in the courts to ensure a timely end to the policy. We are therefore distressed by the deeply inconsistent choice to expand restrictions on asylum seekers after your administration determined it was no longer necessary for public health. Title 42 circumvents domestic law and international law. Human rights groups have extensively documented more than 10,000 violent attacks – including kidnappings, serious assaults, and deaths – against individuals who were expelled to or blocked in Mexico due to Title 42 since the beginning of your administration, with a disproportionate impact on Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, and Indigenous migrants.

We are further concerned by the administration’s announcement that it will be issuing a proposed rulemaking in the coming days that would require asylum seekers to first apply for asylum in a transit country instead of allowing them to seek their legal right to asylum at our southern border. This, in effect, is a transit ban. The courts rightly rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to categorically end asylum when he similarly required asylum seekers to seek asylum in transit countries. Specifically, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Trump-Era Third Country Transit ban violated well-settled U.S. asylum laws that prohibit turning people away unless they have “firmly resettled” in a transit country, especially not if conditions in the transit country are not safe. At the time of this ruling, countries across the Western Hemisphere were unable to meet such requirements. There does not appear to be evidence to show that country conditions in transit countries have improved since the relevant appellate decision was rendered as to justify a new Third Country Transit bar. As the administration well knows, current conditions in Mexico – the primary transit country – cannot ensure safety for the families seeking refuge in the United States. We urge the Biden Administration to engage quickly and meaningfully with members of Congress to find ways to adequately address migration to our southern border that do not include violating asylum law and our international obligations.

Additionally, while the humanitarian parole policies for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are positive, these parole policies cannot displace existing asylum laws. The parole policy’s requirements for passports, financial support in the United States, and the financial resources to travel by air to the United States means that the most vulnerable in those nations will not be able to take advantage of those programs. When Congress established the right to asylum, it did so without such requirements on where people may have previously traveled through or other pathways available. It is, in fact, necessary that asylum must be maintained and strengthened to ensure that safety is within reach, particularly for the most vulnerable.

In your announcement of the parole program, you acknowledged that seeking asylum is a human right and harkened back to the Jewish refugees arriving on our shores to seek safety from the horrors of Nazi persecution during the Holocaust. That sentiment remains true, and the American people agree. In recent months many of our communities have mobilized to welcome asylum seekers arriving to cities with open arms, and polling shows that voters support asylum. It is unconscionable that asylum seekers have no option but to sleep in the streets of El Paso, in overcrowded shelters in Juarez, or in tents in Reynosa, but new asylum restrictions against migrants will not solve this problem. We believe that your administration can and must continue to expand legal pathways for migrants and refugees into the United States – without further dismantling the right to seek asylum at our border. This right is a pillar of the post-war international order to which the United States has committed itself. We are ready to work with you to ensure that we can have a safe, humane, and orderly border that upholds the right to asylum.

Sincerely,

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