Human Rights First’s Comment on the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security’s Final Rule on Securing the Border

For a year and a half, the Biden administration has implemented asylum bans that punish people fleeing persecution and torture. These bans, issued in 2023 and 2024, are similar to prior Trump administration bans and violate the same core provisions of U.S. and international refugee law. They inflict penalties on people seeking asylum who enter the United States between ports of entry while at the same time imposing a discriminatory access system at ports of entry that leaves people waiting in danger for months or longer and pushes many to cross the border without inspection.

Human Rights First and other organizations have extensively documented the bans’ catastrophic impact, including the systematic refoulement of people seeking safety, summary deportations without a fear screening or after a rigged fear screening, discriminatory denial of access to asylum, the denial of stable status and a pathway to citizenship for people determined to be refugees under U.S. law, and counterproductive inefficiencies in asylum adjudications. Extending or expanding the bans only perpetuates this discriminatory, punitive, and unlawful system. We call on the agencies to instead implement effective, non-discriminatory, and fair policies and processes.

Download the full comment below.