Washington, DC – On Tuesday, multiple outlets reported that the Biden administration was considering expanding Title 42 expulsions to certain Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians. Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that, effective immediately, it will turn away all Venezuelan asylum seekers arriving to the U.S. southern border through an expansion of Title 42, with an exception for no more than 24,000 Venezuelans that already have family in the United States—a pathway modeled after a similar program for Ukrainians since Russia’s invasion.
Driven by the core tenets of their religious traditions, people of faith embrace the call to welcome with dignity all people in need of safety—not just those of certain nationalities or with family ties already in the U.S. The member organizations of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition (IIC) join human rights groups and directly-impacted advocates in demanding an end to Title 42 and in urging the Biden administration to adhere to its legal and moral obligation to ensure all asylum seekers have access to a humane and dignified asylum process without discrimination.
“A legitimate and moral system of protection for the persecuted cannot distinguish primarily between the nationality or the relatives of the asylum seeker. A non-arbitrary asylum system should distinguish the legitimacy of each request of protection from persecution. That is why the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship cannot endorse the administration’s proposal to parole or expel Venezuelans without considering the validity of their asylum claims,” said Elket Rodríguez, CBF Field Personnel and Team Leader of the Advocacy Team for Immigrants and Refugees. “It is outrageous that the administration continues to rely on carve-outs and amendments to Title 42, which exposes the absence of a long-term strategy to address the needs of asylum seekers and border communities. Until Title 42 is ended, thousands of potential asylum seekers will be kidnapped and harmed, border communities will be more vulnerable, and the number of repeat border-crossers will continue to increase.”
“Seeking asylum is a human right,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. “By denying this right to unbelievable numbers of individuals and families, Title 42 has been a shameful policy, and President Biden’s plans to expand it further are reprehensible. Jews are currently celebrating the joyful holiday of Sukkot, a holiday that reminds us of the blessing of having a permanent home, as well as of the responsibility to welcome others with dignity. While we welcome the announcement that the administration plans to offer protections to some Venezuelan asylum seekers, this piecemeal and discriminatory approach to asylum protections is insufficient and unjust. We urge the Biden administration to repeal Title 42 completely.”
“Plans by the Biden Administration to expand rather than definitively end Title 42 are a moral non-starter,” said Dylan Corbett, Executive Director, Hope Border Institute. “All those in need of protection should be able to access asylum in an orderly and humane way. Temporary fixes, half measures, and steps backward are no longer acceptable. It is time to end Title 42 and restore asylum at the border once and for all.”
“Offering protection to a few Venezuelans while expanding the Title 42 expulsion policy is morally reprehensible, “ said Ronnate Asirwatham, Government Relations Director, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice. “Everyone seeking protection in the United States must be able to apply for asylum, and each day that this unjust policy remains in place, more and more people are put in danger. The people of the United States have shown that they are ready to welcome with dignity those looking for safety in cities all over the country. We ask President Biden to remember Pope Francis’ words “We cannot remain insensitive, our hearts deadened, before the misery of so many innocent people… We must not fail to respond.”
“We recognize the complex challenges at our southern border and the enormous dangers of making the journey north from Venezuela by land, and we support any steps toward an orderly process allowing Venezuelans to enter the U.S. But this program, as currently designed, is riddled with flaws,” said HIAS Vice President of U.S. Policy and Advocacy Naomi Steinberg. “We are troubled that this plan offers no legal rationale for giving preferential treatment to a very small number of Venezuelans, while expanding Title 42 expulsions for a much larger number of others. The administration is essentially making access to protection contingent upon whether an asylum seeker is fortunate enough to have ties to sponsors, and excluding the most at-risk asylum seekers who won’t have the ability or means to apply for this program. Nowhere in U.S. immigration law does it state that access to protection is limited to those with connections to people who can help support them financially.”
Steinberg continued, “Moreover, as we have seen with the Uniting for Ukraine and Operation Allies Welcome programs, the administration’s reliance on humanitarian parole without long-term improvements to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and the backlogged asylum system, amounts to a band-aid approach that has left and will continue to leave too many people in legal limbo without a pathway to permanent legal status. Finally, we find it disturbing that the Biden administration is no longer citing any public health rationale for Title 42 and is effectively establishing these expulsions as a feature of U.S. immigration policy, instead of taking the necessary steps to fix the asylum system more comprehensively. We renew our call on the president to make good on his previous commitment to end Title 42.”
“To open the U.S. Welcome Door only a crack to offer humanitarian parole to some Venezuelans while excluding many others is unacceptable,” said Sister Marie Lucey, Associate Director of Franciscan Action Network. “Franciscans strive to see all people as sisters and brothers with God-given dignity and a right to flee danger and persecution and to seek safety, whether or not they have family in this country to sponsor them. We urge the Biden administration not to expand Title 42—an exclusionary measure for which there is no public health rationale. We must live up to our claim to be a welcoming people who provide safe harbor to all brothers and sisters who seek asylum in this country.”
“We welcome the Biden administration’s plan to provide some Venezuelans with Humanitarian Parole, which acknowledges the dire circumstances they are fleeing. At the same time, we are disheartened that this plan contradicts itself by including another expansion of Title 42 that applies to most Venezuelans seeking safety. It is time to end this pandemic-era policy once and for all,” said Barbara Weinstein, Director of the Reform Jewish Movement’s Commission on Social Action. “Welcoming some with open arms while cruelly turning others away is unjust and unwise. It is far past time for the administration to restore asylum for all, rather than responding crisis by crisis, with temporary protections, one nationality at a time. Time and again, the Jewish people have experienced the consequences of harsh policies and indifference to the suffering of the world’s most vulnerable people. It is this history that inspires us to strongly urge the Biden administration to stand by its commitment to end Title 42 and restore a just and humane asylum system for all those seeking refuge.”
“Title 42 has been and continues to be an abuse of power that co-opted a global pandemic to excuse the mistreatment of people seeking safety within our borders. Expanding its scope for any reason is unacceptable,” said Terry Burton, Board Chair for the Interfaith Welcome Coalition – San Antonio. “The issues at the border cannot be concealed by not allowing people to claim asylum under the guise that they represent a public health risk. We reiterate our call to the administration to courageously address the push and pull factors within the comprehensive reform of our immigration and asylum systems. We recognize the partisan political pressures to resolve the increased flow of people seeking asylum, but using public health as an excuse to deny entry for desperate people is beyond cruel. It is well past time to fix the system and take a moral stance on the side of the most vulnerable. Without exaggeration, it is our contention that Title 42 and other efforts to deny the rights of asylum seekers constitute an assault on the scriptural wisdom of Matthew 25 and the moral obligation to welcome the stranger shared by most religious traditions.”
“Piece by piece – soul by soul – does not make a policy. The Biden Administration is beyond the halfway point of its term and we have yet to see a unified policy for this great migration crisis,” said Fran Eskin-Royer, Executive Director of the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. “Surely we are no longer surprised by the millions of people primarily from Central and South America who are seeking safety and a dream in the United States. The National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd calls on the Administration to cease using Title 42 as a patch substitute for a broader policy. Venezuelans have been starving under an authoritarian regime. Our United States Government has a Level 4 Do Not Travel Advisory against Venezuela. Venezuelans deserve our welcome and support.”
“Title 42 is already an inhumane policy that denies the worth and dignity of the asylum seekers at our borders who deserve the same protections and opportunities as all of us,” said The Side With Love Organizing Strategy Team at the Unitarian Universalist Association. “To expand this deadly practice by denying safety to even more people is immoral and against the values of welcome and love that are the foundation of our faith. Our Unitarian Universalist tradition is rooted in a belief that our salvation is necessarily interdependent, and that means opening up our communities to support our siblings seeking refuge from violence. As people of faith, we are called to break the cycles of exclusion and oppression, and create the collective liberation we know is possible. We urge the Biden Administration to do what is morally and faithfully right and end Title 42 entirely.”
“Extending life-saving protections to Venezuelans with ties to the United States is a welcome and necessary step forward by this administration, and should be expanded to additional populations in need,” said Rev. Noel Andersen, Director of Grassroots Organizing at Church World Service. “However, expanding Title 42—a program that has proven discriminatory and has denied protections to hundreds of thousands under the false pretenses of public health—would be a tragic mistake. The legal right to seek asylum is a cornerstone of our nation; to deny or return individuals to the very danger they are fleeing runs contrary to our own asylum laws, and our moral obligation to humanitarian protection.”
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, Title 42 has been used unjustly to expel individuals seeking asylum,” remarked Katie Adams, Domestic Policy Advocate for the United Church of Christ and interim chair of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition. “The administration needs to stop relying on this discriminatory practice and instead devote resources and thought into ways to welcome people with dignity and in a safe orderly manner. We can offer humane asylum to people seeking safety, but instead we have been bogged down in the mess of Title 42.”
The Interfaith Immigration Coalition is made up of over 55 national, faith-based organizations brought together across many theological traditions with a common call to seek just policies that lift up the God-given dignity of every individual. In partnership, we work to protect the rights, dignity, and safety of all refugees and migrants. Follow us on Twitter @interfaithimm
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