PRESS STATEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DALLAS – This weekend, high-level government officials continued to be complicit in racist and cruel border policies, refusing asylum seekers their legal right for a bid for safety in the U.S.

“President Biden should have walked into office in January by dismantling Trump’s racist and cruel policy barring asylum seekers from safety at our Southern Border,” said Emily Heger, HRI’s Staff Attorney. “But instead he doubled down on Title 42, and for nearly 2 months, has delayed the necessary steps to prevent a second round of Remain in Mexico.”

For over seven weeks since a Supreme Court decision calling to reinstate President Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, the Biden Administration has promised a second termination memo. To date, that promise remains unfulfilled. Meanwhile, the Administration has decided affirmatively to keep the Trump-era Title 42 policy, which expels asylum seekers from U.S. soil using a “scientifically baseless” public health pretext. Under both Title 42 and Remain in Mexico, immigrants and Black immigrants in particular, have been expelled into conditions rife with murder, rape, kidnapping, anti-Black violence and discrimination in violation of international law. For precisely these reasons, top State Department official Harold Koh resigned at the beginning of the month.

“We need a political system that celebrates and protects every person’s basic humanity, but the President’s policies continue to dehumanize and endanger so many,” said Heger. “President Biden, stop playing politics with people’s lives.”