Reports emerged this week that the Biden administration is pressuring Mexico, Panama, and other nations to take larger numbers of expelled asylum seekers under the rapid Title 42 expulsion policy.

Mary Meg McCarthy, Executive Director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, stated the following in response:

“You cannot claim to end Title 42 while expanding it. Consistently, the Biden administration is adopting policies that violate basic human rights while falsely claiming to abide by the United States’ decades-old domestic and international obligations. It took the Biden administration more than one year to announce it would end this inhumane expulsion policy implemented by the prior administration. While states’ litigation has disrupted this plan, the administration must own its responsibility for policies it has enacted since which have expanded the mass-expulsion of asylum seekers. It is alarming to see the Biden administration continue externalization policies, pressuring other nations to take in asylum seekers who seek protection. Pushing back asylum seekers, whether by deputizing other nations or expelling them ourselves, blatantly violates the law.

“One year ago, as the Biden administration used Title 42 to expel tens of thousands of Haitians seeking protection at our border, the world gasped at horrific images of border officials abusing and forcibly expelling Haitians in Del Rio, Texas. More recently, civil society leaders rang the alarm bell to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination about the racism and xenophobia inherent to Title 42. On this somber anniversary, the Biden administration should heed their warning, not further expand this deadly policy.”