PRES. BIDEN ACCELERATES RADICAL, ANTI-IMMIGRANT ORDERS TO DESTROY ASYLUM ACCESS AND ENDANGER PEOPLE AND FAMILIES SEEKING SAFETY
“The Biden Administration’s invocation of Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act cements the anti-immigrant legacy of this administration.”
San Antonio, TX — In response to President Biden’s executive order invoking Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to "suspend the entry" of foreigners, effectively barring most people and families from seeking asylum in the U.S. as of 12:01 am EST June 5, 2024, RAICES, Texas’ largest immigration legal services provider, released the following statement:
President Biden is wielding the discriminatory and unconstitutional legal underpinning of the ‘Muslim Ban’ to enforce one of the most restrictive immigration policies in recent history that would, in practice, ensure that asylum is no longer a viable pathway for people and families seeking safety in the U.S.
Less than four years after suspending the invocation of 212(f), calling it a “stain in our country,” President Biden plans to further diminish asylum access by using the exact same legal basis previously weaponized against people from Muslim-majority and African countries.
District and appellate courts found the previous administration’s use of the Section 212(f) authority to be unconstitutional — yet the Biden Administration is using every tool available to ensure that our asylum protections are no longer accessible. Today’s executive order comes on the heels of the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security’s announcement last week that criminal prosecutions of asylum-seeking people and families would commence at scale — for the first time since the ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy that yielded the devastating family separation crisis.
“By accelerating the criminalization of individuals pursuing the long-established human legal and human right to seek asylum in the U.S., President Biden is fueling a sociopolitical climate aggressively hostile towards all immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking people and families. I wish I could say that the humanitarian consequences would be unfathomable, but we can in fact fathom them — because we’ve seen them time and again. We urge the Biden Administration to restore asylum access in the U.S. by defending rather than denying the equitable application of federal and international law,” says Faisal Al-Juburi, Chief External Affairs Officer at RAICES.
RAICES immigration experts are available for further comments on this developing story.
RAICES, formally known as the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Headquartered in Texas and with national reach, RAICES promotes migrant justice by providing legal services, social services case management, and rights advocacy for immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking people and families. Learn more at raicestexas.org and follow us on Instagram.
