The Honorable Members of the 118th Congress
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
Dear Honorable Members of the 118th Congress:
With the new year comes new opportunities for the U.S. government to establish a humane and orderly immigration policy that respects human rights. The newly elected majority in the
House of Representatives, however, is moving in the opposite direction, rolling out an
intentionally divisive legislative agenda that panders to hate and anti-immigrant animus
rather than actual policy solutions. Among the first bills expected to go to the House floor is the
“Border Safety and Security Act,” which would, as a practical matter, shut our border to all
asylum seekers, no matter how strong their cases might be.
The undersigned organizations urge Members of the House of Representatives to vote no
on the “Border Safety and Security Act” and on the full slate of anti-immigrant bills we
expect to see introduced in coming months.
The “Border Safety and Security Act” would require a wholly unserious and harmful metric to
be met before any asylum claim could be entertained, inevitably ending access to asylum at all U.S. borders, even for children. Specifically, the bill would seal off all borders and ports of entry to asylum seekers if Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents cannot detain or return to
Mexico all arriving asylum seekers and migrants. This condition is operationally impossible and
a recipe for a human rights catastrophe. Moreover, the...
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