Dear Friend,
Last week, President Biden announced that his administration would expand the Trump-era Title 42 policy to turn away additional migrants at the U.S.- Mexico border. Title 42 is the health-related regulation the Trump administration warped for years to justify shutting down the border, allegedly because of the pandemic. Rather than keeping his campaign promise to lift such inhumane practices, Biden doubled down on the policy. Now, people from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua will also be excluded from entering the U.S. at the southern border.
While we applaud President Biden’s simultaneous announcement of the possibility of parole for up to 30,000 migrants a month who are not at the border, his expansion of Title 42 is a misguided move that will make it difficult or impossible for LGBTQ asylum seekers to seek safety at our doorstep.
While there are theoretical exemptions to Title 42 for people fleeing persecution, exemption requests will be reviewed by the same enforcement officers charged with closing the border. This is a recipe for disaster.
We also strongly denounce the administration’s explicit announcement that there will be additional regulatory bars to asylum in the very near future. We cannot allow that to happen. Restricting asylum seekers’ access to justice will have deadly consequences for LGBTQ people. All of us at Immigration Equality commit ourselves to fighting these terrible policies until they are overturned. We know that you stand with us too.
In Solidarity,
Immigration Equality |
