May 14, 2018
On Monday, May 7, 2018, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” approach to migrants at the US border, including an attempt to prosecute anyone who crosses the Southern border, and systemic separation of children from their parents. OneJustice opposes these policies, which have the potential to destroy the lives of migrant children and families. The Attorney General’s statement represents an un-American deviation from common standards of decency and a violation of domestic and international law.
The right to seek and enjoy asylum is a fundamental human right codified by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and reaffirmed by international, regional and domestic refugee laws around the world. The United States was one of the main authors of both the UDHR and the 1951 Refugee Convention, which reflected the global community’s desire to give human beings a means of escape from atrocities like those seen in World War II.
We seem to have forgotten this past.
In 2014, the UN Refugee Agency conducted a study of 404 unaccompanied or separated children arriving in the US from Central America. This study found that 58% of these children may have asylum claims and thus legally have a right to present themselves to the U.S. Since that time, violence has only escalated in the region, giving women, children and families no option but to face extreme danger to try and reach the Southern border of the United States.
Jessica Therkelsen, Director of the Pro Bono Justice program at OneJustice, condemned the administration’s move: “To greet these migrants with prosecution and family separation is unconscionable, inhumane, and ignores their basic right to ask for asylum.”
Under this new, stricter system, children will be treated as if they were arriving alone at the border and thus processed in a very different system from their parents. This means that any child NOT from Mexico or Canada will be placed with a family member or in a shelter, while their parents wait in detention for prolonged immigration processing. This is despite the fact that, between October and December of 2017, the US government lost track of 1,500 migrant children it had placed with sponsors in that period – with evidence that human trafficking of some of these children had occurred.
At best, the federal government’s new policy violates the basic rights of the child and of asylum seekers, and at worst is complicit in what could become systemic human trafficking.
We call on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to put child welfare and basic human rights at the center of US migration policy, to reverse the policy of total prosecution of migrants at the border, and to reverse the policy of removing migrant children from their parents. We stand in solidarity with our partner organizations across the state who are standing at the frontlines to help immigrants and refugees assert their human rights.
Interested in providing pro bono help for immigrants and their families across the state? Sign up for OneJustice’s Immigration Pro Bono Network to receive volunteer opportunities and immigration updates!