U.S. government asylum seekers have publicly announced a proposal Monday that they would require denying safe haven to migrants who are considered a public health risk, accusing the Trump administration of using the coronavirus pandemic as a condition to promote its restrictive immigration agenda.
In a public comment on the proposed rule, the national union representing the asylum officers said that the policy would not only betray the tradition of America as a leading refuge for the oppressed of the world, but they would force medical assessments out. to perform which they are not qualified to make. As required to enforce the restriction, the asylum seekers said they would break their oath to enforce U.S. laws and international treaties that guarantee protection for people fleeing persecution and torture.
“The measures that the proposed rule seeks to implement do not serve a purpose for public health, nor do they advance the national security of our country. Rather, they are draconian and contrary to the moral fabric of our country and a long tradition of it. providing safe haven for the persecuted, “wrote Council 119, the union representing asylum officers and other employees of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “Simply put, the proposed rule serves no purpose other than to advance the administration’s political goal of shutting down the U.S. asylum program – at some cost to human lives.”
U.S. law allows officials to disqualify certain foreigners from asylum, including those found to present “a threat to the country’s security.” The proposal, issued in July by the Department of Justice and Homeland Security, would label migrants a security threat and expose them to asylum and denial of detention, a more limited form of humanitarian protection against deportation, if officials determined they were contagious. disease can spread, as can the coronavirus.
The proposed asylum restriction would apply to those who have experienced symptoms of a communicable disease, but also to migrants who hail or travel through countries where an outbreak is “prevalent or epidemic.”
Those who pose a threat to public health could be subject to deportation under the United Nations Convention against Torture if they affirm that they are “more likely than not” to be tortured if they are deported. But even then, the rule would allow officials to send these asylum seekers to third countries, instead of staying on American soil.
Asylum seekers would be at the forefront of implementing the proposal, accused of determining whether the rule applies to migrants during the “credible fear” interviews they have checked. Immigration judges, who work for the Department of Justice, will also allow you to make these decisions.
In their statement on Monday, the last day the public had to comment on the proposal, asylum seekers said the restriction could be discrimination. “Under the proposed rule, individuals who may not have an illness may be made ineligible for asylum and restraint protection only if they come from a country where a particular illness occurs. This would result in discrimination against individuals based on their national origin. , in violation of our obligations under international treaty, “the officers said in their submission.
While the US remains the world’s No. 1 coronavirus hotspot with the highest number of cases and deaths, the spread of the virus has accelerated in recent weeks in Latin America, particularly in Mexico and Brazil, which more than 50,000 and 100,000 deaths have been recorded, respectively.
Asylum officers say migrants are eligible for U.S. sanctuary, but who may be ill or recovering from an illness could be returned to danger in violation of the “non-refoulement” principle at the center of U.S. asylum and refugee law. The officers also raised the possibility that immigration officials are making incorrect medical assessments.
“As [immigration] officials should use their discretion in determining whether someone is exhibiting symptoms, this would not only raise concerns about difficult process, but it would also place those in charge of enforcing and enforcing U.S. immigration laws in the precarious situation of potential participation. to the unauthorized practice of medicine, ”read the comment.
Instead of proceeding with these plans, the asylum seekers said that the administration could provide tests, masks, medical treatment and safe quarantine facilities to asylum seekers, if necessary during the pandemic. This is an approach proposed by members of the medical community, including 170 public health experts who called the proposed asylum rule “xenophobia shameful as a public health measure.”
Like its current policy of expelling most migrants from the country’s land borders, including asylum seekers and unaccompanied children, the Trump administration has argued that the proposed restriction will allow migrant detainees, immigration domains and the American public to protection against coronavirus and other communicable diseases. As written, the rule could be used outside of the COVID-19 pandemic and during other outbreaks.
The proposed public health bar for asylum is one of several steps the Trump administration has taken to curb humanitarian programs Congress has created to protect foreigners fleeing persecution or torture because of their race, nationality, religion, political opinion or membership in a “particular social group.” Officials have argued that economic migrants benefit from these protections to gain easy entry into the US
The administration enlisted the help of the Mexican government to send tens of thousands of migrants to Mexico to wait for the duration of their U.S. lawsuits, and secured bilateral agreements that allow U.S. officials to deport asylum seekers to nations in Central America where they must choose between seeking refuge there or returning to their homelands. Another broad restriction, temporarily blocked in court, disqualified tens of thousands of non-Mexican migrants from traveling through a third country to reach the US
In June, the administration proposed perhaps the most extensive asylum restriction. Under many other restrictions, the rule would deny protection to those seeking refuge based on gender-based persecution, gang violence and torture in the hands of “rogue” government officials.
All changes have lasting consequences, the asylum seekers said in their public comments.
“Over the past three years, our Executive Branch has carried out a barrage of measures whose impact and intent are to dismantle the pillars of our defining role as a refuge for the persecuted world, its ‘healing masses that breathe freely,'” she wrote.
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