Immigration, Asylum, and Sanctuary Cities by Ariana Agrios

Author:Ariana Agrios
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing
Published: 2020-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

New Immigration Rules Would End Current Asylum Protections

Julian Borger

Julian Borger is the world affairs editor at the Guardian UK. Previously he was a foreign correspondent and author of The Butcher’s Trail.

The Trump administration has announced new immigration rules ending asylum protections for almost all migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border, in violation of both US and international law.

According to the new rules, any asylum seekers who pass through another country before arriving at the southern border— including children traveling on their own—will not be eligible for asylum if they failed to apply first in their country of transit. They would only be eligible for US asylum if their application was turned down elsewhere.

The change would affect the vast majority of migrants arriving through Mexico. Most of those currently come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but an increasing number are from Haiti, Cuba and countries further afield in Africa and Asia.

The new rules were placed on the federal register on Monday and due to take effect on Tuesday, though they will be immediately challenged in court for contraventions of the US refugee act and the UN refugee convention guaranteeing the right to seek asylum to those fleeing persecution from around the world.

Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said he was deeply concerned by the move. “It will put vulnerable families at risk. It will undermine efforts by countries across the region to devise the coherent, collective responses that are needed. This measure is severe and is not the best way forward,” he said.

“Trump’s ‘blatantly illegal’ immigration rules end asylum protections,” by Julian Borger, Guardian News and Media Limited, July 15, 2019. Reprinted by permission.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the rules were “patently unlawful” and said it would sue the administration to block them taking effect.

In a joint statement, the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice said the rules “add a new bar to eligibility for asylum” for migrants arriving at the southern border “who did not apply for protection from persecution or torture where it was available in at least one third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality or last lawful habitual residence.”

The attorney general, William Barr, said: “This rule will decrease forum shopping by economic migrants and those who seek to exploit our asylum system to obtain entry to the United States, while ensuring that no one is removed from the United States who is more likely than not to be tortured or persecuted on account of a protected ground.”

The US Refugee Act of 1980 limits the right of asylum if the applicant can be sent back to a “safe third country,” but human rights advocates have pointed out that neither Mexico nor any Central American countries come close to meeting the act’s standards of a safe third country, “where the alien’s life or freedom would not be threatened”… “and where the alien would have access to a full an fair procedure for determining a claim to asylum.”

Furthermore, for a country to be considered “safe,” it would have to enter into a formal agreement with the US.

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