Meaningful Compromise on Immigration Would Not Endanger Children and Families Seeking Safety
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Media Contact: media@theyoungcenter.org
Washington D.C.— On Sunday night, Senate leaders released the text of a funding bill laden with anti-immigrant measures that would endanger asylum seekers and leave young adults with DACA in permanent limbo. If passed, the bill would require the U.S. government to seal the border to people seeking asylum when numbers are determined to be too high. This provision would deny protection to untold numbers of people seeking safety, sending them back to danger or trapping them in untenable conditions in Mexico, similar to the Trump-era Title 42 policy. The bill also heightens screening standards for people seeking asylum and speeds up processing while offering no access to immigration judges or appeals when claims are denied. These provisions all but ensure that thousands of people will be wrongfully deported. While the bill includes additional funds for refugee resettlement, it also vastly expands funding for immigration detention to levels even higher than those under the Trump administration. The bill also puts Trump’s border wall back under construction, forcing people to traverse even more dangerous terrain to seek protection.
While the bill carves out some welcome but limited provisions for some children, such as providing government funded counsel for unaccompanied children age 13 and younger and offering protections for children of people on high skilled work visas, its devastation of our asylum system will put far more children in danger. Furthermore, the bill abandons what was previously a keystone of bipartisan immigration proposals: a path to permanent protection for DACA recipients and many other immigrants who have long lived in our communities.
Mina Dixon Davis, Policy Analyst at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said:
"The damage this supplemental bill will do to our asylum system is hard to overstate. This deal seeks to trade away the fundamental rights of one group of vulnerable people to provide limited protections to another. The bill is short-sighted on long-term solutions to the humanitarian needs at the border, instead ramping up detention and expulsion.
For several years, we have witnessed how policies rooted in deterrence and restricting asylum result in tragedies, including family separation and dangerous detention of people seeking safety. The deal will leave many more people unprotected than it will assist.
We urge Members of Congress reject this supplemental bill and instead to invest in humane and effective policies to improve border management and protect the right to asylum.”
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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