On November 9, 2018, the Trump Administration issued an interim final rule and presidential proclamation seeking to ban refugees from obtaining asylum if they cross the southern border between official ports of entry. A federal court in California promptly issued a temporary restraining order suspending this asylum ban, following a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
This policy is cruel, unnecessary, and illegal. It has life or death consequences for families and individuals who are fleeing violence, desperation, and persecution. Asylum is a form of protection our government may grant to someone fleeing their country because they fear they will be harmed based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Seeking asylum is protected within U.S. and international law.
How To Write Your Comment
State Your Opposition in your own words. Each comment should be unique, so be sure to add some addition language to your comment, should you use to copy some of the sample reasons to oppose the regulation, below:
- The regulation violates U.S. law and international treaty obligations. Seeking asylum is protected within U.S. and international law (Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention).
- The rule unfairly penalizes refugees in need of protection because of how they enter the United States. This rule is another building block in this administration’s unprecedented assault on asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border. The administration is attempting to deny refugees asylum in the U.S. just because they crossed the border between ports of entry, despite the fact that there are many legitimate reasons why asylum seekers do not go to official crossing points.
- The regulation could leave refugees fleeing persecution without protection. The alternative fear-based protections to asylum are much more difficult to obtain than asylum, as they have more stringent requirements.
- Alternative forms of legal protection are insufficient. The alternative fear-based protections are inadequate substitutes to asylum as they do not offer the same protections as asylum and would leave people vulnerable to family separation, removal to third countries, and subject to barriers to education and work.
- The rule upends protections Congress created for unaccompanied children seeking asylum. The law requires that asylum officers, rather than immigration judges, first hear the cases of unaccompanied children so that they can recount the sensitive and often traumatic facts of their claims in a non-adversarial setting. (William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, TVPRA).
- This policy is cruel, unnecessary, and illegal. It has life or death consequences for families and individuals who are fleeing violence, desperation, and persecution.