PRESS STATEMENT<\/p>\n
\u00a0BNHR Statement Responding to CBP Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan\u2019s Remarks on Asylum Seekers.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The following statement can be attributed to Fernando Garcia<\/strong><\/p>\n Founder and Executive Director of Border Network for Human Rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cCommissioner McAleenan\u2019s statement earlier this morning in El Paso presented a vision from CBP and this Administration that couches efforts to undermine due process and the legal immigration system, with tired, racist tropes about migrants, all under a facade of talk about humanitarianism and well-being.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s be clear about a few things Commissioner McAleenan mentioned:<\/p>\n First, asylum seekers are not criminals.\u00a0 Asylum is a lawful process and migrants need to have an ability to claim asylum.\u00a0 Denying migrants, the ability to claim asylum at ports, as our laws are designed to work, may force them to cross without authorization, but does not make them criminals or undermine their asylum claims in any way.\u00a0\u00a0 Painting migrants as criminals poisons the well and shows that this Administration is not working to provide good faith solutions to the challenges we face.<\/p>\n Second, the trope of \u2018disease bearing migrants\u2019 is old, tired, and deeply racist.\u00a0 This is an utter lie.\u00a0 It is a lie that has been used throughout our past to justify racial segregation, oppression, and even violence.\u00a0 It is pernicious and destructive and it is unacceptable for someone in Commissioner McAleenan\u2019s position to be furthering such smears.<\/p>\n Third, the actions laid out and put forward by Commissioner McAleenan are unacceptable and will only further this Administration\u2019s work of breaking the legal immigration system.\u00a0 We are repeatedly told that our ports-of-entry lack the resources to process asylum seekers, but rather than invest in more personnel, asylum officers, and infrastructure, Commissioner McAleenan said that CBP will redeploy 750 officers away from the ports.\u00a0 This is backward.\u00a0 This is not a solution to a broken system, this is a move to break a system that has, could, and should work.\u00a0 Moreover, coming before the cross-border traffic spike at Easter this will lead to needlessly long backlogs at ports-of-entry.<\/p>\n Likewise, calls to undermine asylum laws and do away with protections for unaccompanied minors are an attack on due process\u2014a fundamental value of our laws and legal system.\u00a0 Any action that would undermine due process is not about fixing a broken system, it is about breaking that system to expose people to unaccountable enforcement and abuse.\u00a0 All of what the Commissioner laid out, whether providing more funding for ICE, calling for asylum cases to be adjudicated in a matter of weeks, and for CBP to directly release people to the streets if they cannot hold them for weeks in detention\u2014as is their preference, is about breaking our immigration system and sowing a crisis this administration is determined to create rather than providing real solutions.<\/p>\n Finally, we invite Commissioner McAleenan to tell the Irish of the 1840’s or the Italians of the 1890’s that poverty and starvation are not reasons to come to seek the opportunity, welcome, and grace of these United States.\u00a0 Consistently this Administration has attacked America\u2019s values and the Commissioner\u2019s remarks this morning are a stark reminder that what is at stake is who we are as a people and who we wish to be.\u00a0 Will we criminalize and dehumanize, or will we let a new generation of migrants pursue the American Dream making our society richer and better.<\/p>\n Rather than the Commissioner\u2019s wrong-headed, anti-American, racist anti-immigrant agenda we need to take a different approach.\u00a0 We need to invest in asylum officers, personnel and infrastructure at ports-of-entry, and the processes to make our asylum system in ways that uplift our values and the humanity of all persons.\u00a0 We need to invest in alternatives to detention, such as a case management program with a 99.3% court appearance rate, that the Trump Administration cut funding for, even over objections from ICE.\u00a0 And we need to invest in welcoming and integration centers to help migrants come to the U.S. safely and legally, with an understanding of their rights and their obligations in their new home, and with access to the resources that will help them and their communities thrive.\u00a0 These are real solutions that advance American values, will improve the well-being of American communities, protect due process, and uplift the humanity of everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The Border Network for Human Rights, founded in 1998, is one of the leading human rights advocacy and immigration reform organizations located at the U.S.\/Mexico Border. BNHR has over 7,000 members in West Texas and Southern New Mexico.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PRESS STATEMENT \u00a0BNHR Statement Responding to CBP Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan\u2019s Remarks on Asylum Seekers. \u00a0 The following statement can be attributed to Fernando Garcia Founder and Executive Director of Border Network for Human...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3157,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnhr.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}