ILAP Decries Biden Administration’s Asylum Ban

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 2, 2024 
CONTACT: press@ilapmaine.org

Maine - The Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP) joins partners across the country in condemning the Biden Administration’s final rule that effectively blocks access to asylum. The rule, first proposed as a proclamation and interim rule earlier in 2024, endangers the lives of people seeking safety and flies in the face of U.S. law and international treaties. 

“The right to seek asylum is the law of the United States,” said Sue Roche, ILAP’s Executive Director. “This final rule blatantly disregards our clear and long-standing laws and international treaty obligations. It is inhumane, immoral, and deadly. It is both possible and necessary to welcome people with dignity and ILAP remains steadfast in our support of asylum seekers and the legal right to seek asylum.”  

Egregious, life-threatening features of this final rule include essentially requiring use of a faulty cell phone app (CBP One) to be able to seek asylum; restricting overall access to asylum based on arbitrary numbers of encounters at the southern border; and extreme expedites in processing that make access to counsel and due process all but impossible. The rule leaves people stranded in Mexico for many months due to lack of CBP One appointments and overall, it blocks any meaningful access to ask for asylum. Violent attacks, rapes, and kidnapping of asylum seekers stranded at the border are well documented. Black migrants are uniquely harmed as CBP One is not available in the languages many people speak and facial recognition technology often fails to work for darker skin tones.   

Lisa Parisio, ILAP’s Policy Director said: “We know, without question, that effectively shutting down the border and denying people their right to seek asylum under U.S. law does not stop them from needing or seeking safety and security. It only forces them to take more dangerous and deadly journeys to reach U.S. soil or leaves them trapped in harm’s way while stranded in Mexico waiting for a chance to exercise their rights. Solidifying this extremist rule is nothing more than the continued politicization of human life and the Biden administration should immediately reverse course.” 

###