This week, we submitted an official objection to the Biden Administration's proposed asylum "transit ban," calling on the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice “to withdraw this rule in its entirety, to avoid endangering and immiserating migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border, and instead allocate resources toward vastly increased capacity for humane asylum processing, alternatives to detention, and fair adjudications.” Members of the public have until March 27 to submit comments, to which the administration must respond before implementing it. WOLA encourages you to submit your own comment.

We also published a statement in reaction to recent electoral reforms in El Salvador. WOLA is concerned by the Legislative Assembly’s decision to repeal Article 291-A of the electoral code as this opens the door to a myriad of changes in the electoral process. The decision set alarm bells ringing for those who have been observing the elimination of checks and balances in El Salvador, particularly since Bukele announced in September 2022 that he would run for re-election next February despite the Constitutional ban. WOLA calls on the U.S government, the international community, and other relevant actors to work with the Electoral Tribunal, and recommends in-country electoral observation missions to ensure a comprehensive analysis of the electoral process.

This and more in this week's WOLA Weekly.

Adam Isacson

WOLA's Director for Defense Oversight

• 🇨🇺 WOLA and the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA) issued a statement welcoming the reintroduction of the Freedom to Export to Cuba Act and the bipartisan letter sent to President Biden urging reduced sanctions on Cuba’s private sector. 
• 🇺🇸 📩 Biden's Transit Ban is part of an edifice of asylum limitations and alternative pathways that the Biden administration is building ahead of the Title 42 authority’s possible end on May 11, 2023. You can learn more in this February 17 WOLA commentary
• 🇸🇻 WOLA calls on the U.S. government, the international community, and other relevant actors, like the OAS and the European Union, to offer political and financial support for civil society and independent journalists that oversee the elections, promote the rule of law, and protect civil and political rights for Salvadorans.

In April 2022, WOLA launched its one-of-kind Border Oversight Database, which documents hundreds of reports of human rights violations and abuses against migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Carolina Jiménez Sandoval

President

"We have a region that is experiencing the third largest human mobility crisis in the world, but also desperate people fleeing their countries, where autocracies or very consolidated authoritarians rule,"

WOLA's President Carolina Jiménez Sandoval tells Prodavinci.

WOLA's Director for the Andes, Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, and Program Assistant, Kelsey Kotts, are currently traveling through Cali and Buenaventura, Colombia to meet with partners.

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