Six Weeks After Biden’s Second Asylum Ban Took Effect, Advocates Report Rampant Rights Violations at U.S.-Mexico Border

Image

In the first six weeks since the Biden administration implemented its newest asylum ban rule, people seeking safety at the U.S.-Mexico border have experienced egregious due process and human rights violations along with inconsistent and confusing application of the new legal requirements, according to a new report released by humanitarian and legal services organizations.

The report is a collaboration between the National Immigrant Justice Center, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Hope Border Institute, Refugees International, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, the National Immigration Law Center, Human Rights First, Women’s Refugee Commission, and Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project.

On June 4, 2024, the Biden administration issued a presidential proclamation followed by an Interim Final Rule which went into effect immediately, severely limiting eligibility for asylum protections for the majority of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, without regard to the viability of their legal claims for asylum.

The new report includes stories of more than 30 people who have sought asylum at the border since the asylum ban took effect and have encountered insurmountable due process violations. One man, who entered the United States with his partner and 11-month-old son and surrendered to Border Patrol to request protection, told advocates that he explained to an immigration officer that he had been kidnapped and tortured by organized crime and showed them the marks on his body, but the agents told him “There is no asylum anymore, we don't care.”

Combined with the Biden administration’s May 2023 asylum ban, the groups report, the newest rule flouts the U.S. government’s legal obligations by summarily deporting refugees to danger, stranding asylum seekers in Mexico where they are vulnerable to severe harm, and in some instances compelling family separation.

Among the most frequent violations:

1. People with bona fide claims of fear have been summarily deported without even an initial asylum screening known as a Credible Fear Interview (CFI) — even when they proactively express fear as required under the new rule.
2. The rule imposes a new, higher legal standard for CFIs that means people who previously qualified for protection are now returned to harm.
3. People who manage to receive a CFI face significant barriers to accessing legal counsel to help them prepare for the interview while in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention centers, or even to orient them as to their rights.
4. Arriving families face a confusing set of possibilities for how they can be processed by CBP at the border, resulting in family separations.
5. Families and single adults have faced prolonged detention in CBP custody under inhumane conditions.
6. The rule traps Mexican asylum seekers in their own country where they fear persecution and deports third-country nationals to the custody of Mexican immigration enforcement.
7. Mexican nationals who are immediately deported by CBP under the rule have reported receiving little-to-no documentation regarding their cases from the U.S. government prior to their deportation.
8. The rule illegally conditions access to asylum on the ability to secure an appointment using a glitchy and restrictive smartphone app.
9. Vulnerable asylum seekers with urgent safety and medical needs, who should qualify for the rule’s exceptions, face nearly insurmountable challenges to accessing U.S. ports of entry.
10. In Texas, Operation Lone Star prevents families from reaching CBP agents to proactively express fear, further exacerbating the rule’s severe restrictions on access to asylum.

A lawsuit filed by Immigrant rights organizations in June to challenge the new rule argues that it mimics the asylum entry ban that the Trump administration imposed in 2018, which multiple courts invalidated as illegal. The June asylum ban remains operational pending this litigation.

Read the full report.

###

Media contacts:

Tara Tidwell Cullen, National Immigrant Justice Center, email, (312) 833-2967
Human Rights First, email
Hope Border Institute, email 
Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), email
Joanna Kuebler, Women’s Refugee Commission, email, (646) 255-5586
Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, email