Dear Speaker Pelosi, McCarthy Minority Leader, DeLauro Chairperson and Granger Rank Member,
The undersigned civil society organizations write to express our grave concern at the amendments to the House’s expenditure accounts for fiscal year 2023 for the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services that would legally and indefinitely extend the application of the Title 42 policy that was used for blocking and expulsion asylum seekers and migrants seeking safe refuge in the United States. We urge you to make sure that those people who eat poison pills, or others like them, are not included in any law that receives a vote in the House.
In 1980, the US Congress passed the Refugee Act, codifying in American law the protection of the Refugee Convention, drawn up by the international community after the atrocities of World War II. Today, just forty years later, these key security features are at risk. Title 42 prevents people who clearly qualify for asylum under our rules – based on individual persecution in their home countries – even from presenting their case. We call on the House of Representatives to reject the misguided political response of a few that would lead to direct harm to asylum seekers and undermine the integrity of the US asylum system.
“Title 42” may sound harmless; in fact, it is a policy devised by the Trump administration to dismantle the US asylum system under the guise of deceptive public health justifications. Maintaining title 42 exposes refugees to risk, exacerbates chaos at the border and serves no legitimate public health purpose.
The 42 expulsion policy harms asylum seekers. Deportations have blocked people in need of protection from exercising their right to apply for asylum without having to check asylum eligibility as required under US law. Under Title 42, the US government routinely sends asylum seekers back to Mexico, where they are at risk of kidnapping and violent assault or back to the violence from which they fled in their home countries. Under Biden’s administration, there have been over 10,318 reported violent attacks, including kidnappings and rape, against people expelled to Mexico under Title 42. The damages of Title 42 expulsions mainly concern black, brown and indigenous asylum seekers. Recognizing the different racial impact of this policy, civil rights leaders have called for an end to Title 42 in the name of racial equality and asylum law.
Title 42 does nothing to protect public health. Title 42 policy has never been justified as a public health measure. Senior CDC experts opposed the policy from the outset. Epidemiologists and medical experts have repeatedly affirmed that Title 42 policy undermines public health responses to COVID-19 and that the pandemic, including emerging variants, can be addressed with existing precautions such as offering vaccinations, testing, masking and avoiding use, holding congregation.
Title 42 wreaks havoc at the border, instead of easing it. As 42 expulsions prevent violent refugees from seeking safety at US ports of entry, the policy forces people to repeatedly attempt to gain access to asylum protection, and US immigration officials cannot enforce US immigration laws. According to CBP data, the percentage of people who repeatedly tried to cross the southern border increased by more than 385 percent from fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2022, from seven percent to 27 percent in May 2022.
Transnational organized crime also benefits from the Title 42 policy, as without safe paths to seek protection, migrants are often forced to rely on smugglers to transport them to US territory and are driven by unsafe paths to seek protection.
The amendments passed by the House Remedies Committee are particularly damaging as they make the annulment of Title 42 conditional on the end of the emergency declaration COVID-19, a decision with wide public health and safety implications. The decision to terminate a COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Report is extremely important as the termination will limit or end the government’s flexibility to respond to COVID-19 public health needs, including issuing Medicare, Medicaid, and Medicare exemptions or modifications. CHIP. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 5.3 million to 14.2 million people could lose Medicaid coverage when the public health emergency ends.
Linking access to asylum with the public health needs of millions will add a negligible complication to this important decision, with unintended and potentially harmful consequences for both immigration and public health.
We encourage you to make sure that these amendments are not included in any law that is put to the vote in the House. Allowing these laws to implement would irreversibly tarnish decades of Congress’ commitment to protecting refugees and asylum seekers. In the face of countless lives, we expect you to protect, not undermine, the right of asylum seekers.
American Friendship Committee
American Association of Immigration Lawyers
American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
Asian Americans for Justice | AAJC
Asia Pacific Institute for Gender Violence
Asylum Advocacy Project (ASAP)
Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Gender and Refugee Research
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center for Education and Civil Rights Enforcement
United communities for the status of & amp; Protection (CUSP)
Legal advisor for student immigration
Refugee students & amp; Immigration Ministries
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The first focus campaign for children
Government Responsibility Project
Fund of Action for Equality in Immigration
Institute of Justice and Democracy in Haiti
International Refugee Aid Project (IRAP)
Interreligious Task Force for Central America and Colombia
JPIC Office, Adorers of the Blood of Christ, USA Region
Latin America Working Group (LAWG)
Leadership Conference on Civil and Civil Human Rights
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)
Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Center for Parent Leadership, Advocacy and Community Empowerment
(National
The National Council of Jewish Women
National Center of Justice for Immigrants
National Immigration Project (NIPNLG)
National justice for our neighbors
National Network of Immigrants and Refugees Rights
National Partnership for New Americans
The National Priorities project at the Institute of Political Studies
NETWORK Catholic Social Justice Lobby
International Union of Service Workers (SEIU)
The Sisters and Associates of St. Francis
The Justice Team of the Daughters of Charity of America
Coalition of Southern Border Communes
South Poverty Law Center Action Fund
T’ruah: A rabbinical call for human rights
American Committee on Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)
Unitarian Committee of the Universal Service
Unitarian universalists for social justice
Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA)
Young Center for the Rights of the Child of Immigrants
Regional / state / local organizations
Visit to Adelanto & amp; Advocacy network
Advocates for Fundamental Legal Equality, Inc.
Asian Americans for Justice – Atlanta
Association for Special Children and Families
Bellevue program for survivors of torture
Zegnij Jewish Arch. Action Pittsburgh
Pump Up the Arch: Jewish Action – Maryland
Bend the Arc: Jewish Champaign-Urbana
Coalition for the rights of immigrants from the capital zone (CAIR coalition)
Central American Resource Center – CARECEN – in California
Church Women United in New York State
Coalition for the Humanitarian Rights of Immigrants (CHIRLA)
Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants in Colorado
Asylum Seeking Communities Project
Connecticut’s undivided coastline
Esperanza The Immigrant Rights Project
Unique Child Assistance Center (ECAC)
Federation for Children with Special Needs
First friends of New Jersey and New York
Florence immigrant & amp; Refugee rights project
Georgian Asylum and Immigration Network (GAIN)
Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights
Guadalupe Presbyterian Church USA, Guadalupe, AZ
North Texas Human Rights Initiative
Illinois State Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Legal project of immigrants
Immigration Working Group, SWPA Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Interfaith Committee for Latin America
Interfaith community for detained Chicago immigrants
Interfaith Welcome Coalition – San Antonio
Jewish Immigrant Justice Activists for the Western Mass
Jewish Family Service in San Diego
Justice for our neighbors El Paso
Immigrant Aid Center Kitsap (KIAC)
La Raza Community Resource Center
Las Americas Immigration Center
Federation of Families for Child Mental Health of Montgomery County, Inc.
The New Movement of Sanctuary of Atlanta
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
NW Ohio Immigrant Rights Network
OPAWL – Building AAPI’s feminist leadership
Rio Grande Border Ministries
Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network
Rutgers Law School, Children’s Rights Advocacy Clinic
San Dieguito United Methodist Church, Encinitas, CA
St. Francis of Philadelphia
St. Francis, Tiffin, OH
St. Joseph of Carondelet
Coalition of Social Justice, Central Lutheran Church
Mobilization of Takoma Park – Equal Justice
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