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Restored access to asylum at the border

(Washington, DC, October 21, 2022) – The decision by US President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to expand the abusive Title 42 border exchange policy and deport Venezuelans to Mexico without them seeking asylum in the United States continues. Lives in danger and in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch said today. The parallel announcement of a new program to allow some Venezuelans to travel to the United States by plane includes restrictions that will leave many asylum seekers unable to obtain protection.

On October 12, 2022, the US and Mexican governments announced a new migration process for Venezuelans “to reduce the number of people arriving” at the US border. Under the policy, which took effect on October 13, any Venezuelans who cross the US-Mexico border irregularly will be deported to Mexico without the chance to seek asylum in the US. As of October 18, 4,050 Venezuelans have returned.

“A new legal path for some Venezuelans seeking safety in the United States will not address the potential harm that many others will suffer due to this massive expansion of the abusive Trump-era Title 42 border deportation policy,” said Tyler Mattiace, Mexico Researcher at Human Rights Watch. “With this decision, Biden is effectively punishing the Venezuelans who were forced to flee their country on foot, denying them the right to seek asylum, and trying to sugar-coat this abusive policy with a humanitarian parole program that benefits only a select few. “.

Before October 13, neither the United States nor Mexico had expelled most Venezuelans, as Venezuela often refuses to accept deportation flights. Venezuelans who have been expelled to Mexico in recent days have received visas valid for only a few days or received documents from Mexican authorities instructing them to leave the country via the Mexico-Guatemala border. The documents do not allow them to stay in Mexico or receive public services such as health care or education. Human Rights Watch has asked representatives of Mexico’s National Migration Institute and Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the legal status of expelled Venezuelans, but as of October 21 have not received a response.

Title 42 has prevented hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Africans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and people of many other nationalities from accessing fair asylum procedures in the United States since March 2020, in violation of US and international law.

The US and Mexican governments also announced a new program, which began on October 18, for up to 24,000 Venezuelans who meet certain requirements to apply for permission to travel to the US by plane. To qualify, Venezuelans must have a valid passport and have a US-based sponsor who agrees to provide housing and financial support. Venezuelans who entered the United States, Mexico or Panama irregularly after October 18 are not eligible.

These requirements are often difficult to meet. Many Venezuelans face administrative and economic barriers to obtaining or renewing passports or other official documents—including marriage and birth certificates—because Venezuelan consular services are scarce and unaffordable. Requiring asylum seekers to produce a passport from the government, which they can track, contradicts the reality for many refugees, Human Rights Watch said.

The Biden administration should restore access to the right to seek asylum for everyone who arrives at the US-Mexico border, regardless of nationality, financial means, family ties or the travel documents they have. And the United States should remove the passport requirement that many Venezuelans will not be able to apply for the new program.

Biden administration officials compared the program for Venezuelans to Uniting for Ukraine, created in April, which allows Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion to travel to the United States. However, the US has not banned Ukrainians from seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border and in March exempted Ukrainians from being deported to Mexico under the Title 42 policy.

The number of Venezuelans traveling to the US border has increased in recent years as the country faces a brutal crackdown on dissent and a humanitarian emergency with millions unable to access basic health care, adequate food and safe have water Over 7 million people have fled Venezuela since 2014. US officials detained more than 200,000 Venezuelans at the US-Mexico border between January 2021 and August 2022.

US officials have leaned heavily on Mexico, Guatemala, and other regional governments to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from other nationalities from traveling north to reach the US border, which has driven many to take more dangerous routes.

After Mexico, Costa Rica and Belize imposed new visa requirements for Venezuelans, making it more difficult for them to travel north by plane, the number crossing the dangerous Darien Gap on the Colombia-Panama border has increased. More than 107,000 Venezuelans crossed the Darien Gap between January and September 2022, compared to about 1,500 during the same period in 2021. In May, Human Rights Watch traveled to the Darien Gap and documented grave abuses by criminals against migrants who rarely access to health care, protection or justice.

The Title 42 border removal policy has effectively closed US ports of entry to nearly all asylum seekers since it was implemented by former US President Donald Trump in March 2020, under the guise of a pandemic response measure. Public health officials have since said the approach was “the abuse of a public health authority” and that it was politically motivated.

The policy allows U.S. immigration agents to refuse to accept asylum applications at official border crossings and to deport anyone who crosses the border irregularly without allowing them to seek asylum in the United States. It has been used more than 2.2 million times to expel migrants and asylum seekers to Mexico or their home countries.

The Biden administration had announced plans to end the deportation policy in April after using it for more than a year to deport people more than twice as often as the Trump administration, but several US states have challenged the move in federal court. challenged, resulting in an order to uphold the policy during the trial. Since then, the Biden administration has expanded its use of Title 42 and officials have reported that they intend to find other ways to deport asylum seekers when it can no longer abuse the public health authority to do so.

Criminal groups and Mexican officials often target migrants and asylum seekers who have been expelled from the United States to Mexico for abuses including kidnapping, extortion, and rape, as Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented. There have been at least 6,000 documented cases of kidnappings or other violent attacks against people returning from the United States to Mexico, according to the organization Human Rights First, which tracks such cases.

The Mexican government should refuse to accept any expulsions, including those of Venezuelans, and especially those at greater risk, such as LGBT people and people with chronic diseases or disabilities, Human Rights Watch said. It should also provide legal status to all Venezuelans expelled from the United States to ensure they can access basic services.

The right to seek asylum is a core principle of international human rights law and is implemented in US law. Anyone seeking international protection has the right to apply for asylum abroad and have their case heard before the relevant authorities. Deporting asylum seekers without granting them their claims violates the Refugee Convention, the Convention against Torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“Biden and López Obrador should work together to create humane, fair, rights-respecting immigration and asylum systems rather than limiting the right to seek asylum based on race, nationality, financial means or family ties,” said Ari Sawyer, US border researcher. at Human Rights Watch.

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