Democrats condemn Biden administration’s new asylum limits

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.-14), alongside Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas-35), and Rep. 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.”

KJ