Expanding Title 42 and Denying Access to Asylum to Venezuelans Will Exacerbate Human Suffering and Family Separations at the Border

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Thursday, October 13, 2022 

Media Contact: media@theyoungcenter.org 

Washington D.C.— Yesterday, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a new private sponsorship program that would cap the number of Venezuelan migrants eligible to seek asylum while mass expelling all others to Mexico. This is a de facto expansion of the Trump Administration’s infamous Title 42 policy. It is also a flagrant violation of all peoples’ right to seek asylum by excluding people from protection if they do not have a supporter with financial means in the United States or if they traveled “irregularly” through Mexico or Panama to reach the United States. Asylum does not hinge on your manner of flight from danger nor your financial means — or connection to financial resources. 

Jennifer Nagda, Policy Director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said:

“Rather than restore the right to asylum decimated by the Trump administration or implement new policies to ensure all people are welcomed and can remain with family while they seek protection, the Biden administration has dangerously embraced the failures of the past and expanded upon them by explicitly enabling expulsions of Venezuelan migrants.  

People seek asylum because their lives depend on it. What is clear from this expansion of Title 42 is that our country has decided to defend obstacles designed to reject people —including children—seeking safety. 

There is no overstating the level of human suffering Title 42 has inflicted. Just last year, more than 12,000 children entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors after previously being expelled with family under Title 42. This policy causes family separation by forcing parents to “choose” between remaining with their children in dangerous conditions outside the U.S. or separating from them in hopes that they'll find safety if they approach the border unaccompanied. Welcoming migrants safely and humanely is possible if only the Biden administration demonstrated the courage to treat all who seek asylum as human beings first.” 

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The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights is a non-profit organization that protects and advances the rights and best interests of immigrant children and advocates for an immigration system that treats children as children first. For press inquiries, please contact Anabel Mendoza at media@theyoungcenter.org