Recommendations for Equitable Access to Asylum and Ports of Entry

The Biden administration should take urgent steps to ensure prompt and non-discriminatory access to U.S. ports of entry for people seeking asylum. The administration described its May 2023 and June 2024 asylum bans as imposing consequences against noncitizens crossing between ports of entry in order to “incentivize” people seeking asylum to “use … lawful, safe, and orderly pathways and processes” that include presenting themselves at ports of entry with an appointment. However, in practice, the asylum bans, which bar otherwise eligible refugees from asylum when they cross into the United States without such an appointment, have spurred entries outside ports of entry. The long wait times for the ban’s appointments and the appointment system’s language deficiencies and other barriers impede African, Indigenous, LGBTQI+, disabled, and other people from seeking asylum at ports of entry. The bans have also turned away refugees in violation of U.S. and international law.

The Biden administration should take urgent steps to right the course, restore equitable and non-discriminatory access to asylum that upholds U.S. law and treaties, and incentivize the use of U.S. ports of entry by actually enabling people seeking asylum to access those ports without delay. In addition to rescinding the 2023 Circumvention of Lawful Pathways and 2024 Securing the Border rules which received widespread opposition, eligibility for asylum must never be conditioned on an individual’s manner of entry in accordance with U.S. and international law.  

Key steps include: Expand CBP One appointments and languages; enable prompt access to ports of entry for people seeking asylum who do not have appointments; and rescind the asylum bans.

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