While Joe Biden has previously committed to ending anti-asylum policies like Remain in Mexico, the president-elect has been notably cautious about saying he’d end other disastrous and inhumane Trump policies, like the alleged public health order the administration has used as an excuse to quickly expel asylum-seekers from the U.S.
Shortly before the election, Biden’s campaign said he’d order a review of the policy. But following his win, advocates say he must also end it, citing the policy’s completely political nature. “The government has used the pandemic as a pretext to block and expel asylum-seekers to the countries they fled as well as Mexico under a CDC order that the agency’s own experts refuse to sign off on,” Human Rights First’s Kennji Kizuka said according to Border Report.
Indeed, the Associated Press said in an explosive report last year that even though a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expert said there was no public health reasoning to implement such an order, Mike Pence and Stephen Miller united to go around the experts and bully agency Director Robert Redfield into signing off on it anyway. “That was a Stephen Miller special,” a former Pence aide is quoted saying in the report. “He was all over that.”
Under that “Stephen Miller special,” the Trump administration has quickly expelled nearly 200,000 people from U.S., including thousands of children, bypassing the immigration court system and U.S. law to quickly kick them out. A federal judge last November blocked this policy when it concerned children who come to the U.S. alone, but federal immigration officials admitted they expelled a number of children in violation of that order anyway.
There’s no rationale for this policy, and Biden should immediately end it as his administration works to rebuild and improve the nation’s asylum system, advocates say.
“As top-line matters, we urge President-elect Biden to commit to an immediate and full reversal of the Title 42 CDC Order,” Human Rights Watch said in a recent letter, “particularly given media reporting that links its promulgation not to public health concerns, but political ones, while taking rational, evidence-based, non-discriminatory measures to ensure public health without violating the right to seek asylum.”
“Joe Biden can and should reverse all of those policies, starting with the Title 42 closure of the border … public health experts say the closure was not made on a public health basis,” Center for Gender and Refugee Studies Director Karen Musalo told Border Report. She said the U.S. is absolutely capable of humanely, and safely, processing asylum-seekers (some ports of entry see tens of thousands of people crossing back and forth every day). “These experts say we can reopen the border to asylum seekers with proper screening for COVID, a two-week quarantine when appropriate, the proper use of masks and no detention,” she said.
In further example of the Trump administration’s clear anti-asylum animus, CBS News reported in December that Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott and Office of Field Operations Head William Ferrara admitted in court documents that their agents unlawfully expelled 34 children from the U.S. after the federal judge’s November ruling, with Ferrara’s agents kicking out kids as young as 12. “One of them turned out to be a U.S. citizen who was ultimately allowed to enter the country after being expelled, Ferrara said in his declaration,” the report said.
“Rather than resorting to the inhumane policy of detention, which is especially dangerous in the time of COVID, asylum-seekers should be released to family and friends while they pursue their claims,” Musalo continued to Border Report. “It’s well documented that, when provided with legal and support services, the vast majority of asylum-seekers show up for their scheduled hearings. The cost of these alternatives to detention is a fraction of the cost of detention.”
