Press Release
Published on January 19, 2018
New York City—A new report released today shows that amid President Trump’s campaign to block refugees seeking protection from this country, his administration has increased the criminal prosecution of asylum seekers and migrants at the southern border. The administration’s tactics, which include referring asylum seekers for prosecution even after they’ve clearly stated a fear of return, separating families in order to begin criminal proceedings against parents, and pushing plea agreements that force asylum seekers to forego their claims for protection, are a violation of U.S. treaty obligations and due process.
Human Rights First’s report, “Punishing Refugees and Migrants: The Trump Administration’s Misuse of Criminal Prosecutions,” is a result of firsthand research conducted at eight federal courts along the border and through in-depth communications with criminal defense and immigration lawyers over several months.
“Referring asylum seekers for prosecution is a clear violation of U.S. treaty obligations, and places asylum seekers at heightened risk of return to countries where they may face persecution,” said Human Rights First’s Olga Byrne. “Seeking asylum is a legal act, but this administration is committed to criminalizing asylum seekers—like all immigrants—in its efforts to sell its harmful, xenophobic policies. These asylum seekers will now have a criminal record and the administration will count them as so-called ‘criminal aliens’ in its enforcement statistics.”
On January 25, 2017, President Trump issued an executive order calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to make criminal prosecution of immigration offenses a “high priority”—even though such cases already made up more than half of all federal prosecutions nationwide. Then-secretary of homeland security John Kelly then directed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies to target people for offenses that included “illegal entry and reentry.” In April and May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal prosecutors to make “immigration offenses higher priorities,” target “first-time improper entrants,” and “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” in all charging decisions.
These directives subvert U.S. treaty obligations that prohibit the penalization of refugees for unauthorized entry or presence—protections created in the wake of World War II after many nations treated refugees seeking asylum in their countries as “illegal” entrants. As a result, asylum seekers are subjected to a deeply dehumanizing system that punishes them for seeking protection and threatens to return them to countries where they will face persecution—a violation of the Refugee Convention.
Asylum seekers and migrants are often prosecuted in large, group hearings known as “Operation Streamline” (which is now officially termed the “Criminal Consequence Initiative”). In these en masse hearings, defendants are often held in five-point shackles and may have their entire case heard, pled, and sentenced in a matter of minutes.
Human Rights First’s findings include:
