UN migration, refugee agencies cite ‘fundamental’ right to asylum after new US moves to restrict it

GENEVA — UN migration and refugee agencies expressed concern about the Biden administration’s plans to New asylum restrictions in the United States. and said that the right to asylum is fundamental.

president joe biden On Tuesday he revealed plans to enact immediate significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border as the White House attempts to neutralize immigration as a political liability before the November elections.

The measure would prevent migrants from being granted asylum when officials deem it so. the southern border with Mexico is overwhelmed. It comes after the collapse months ago of a bipartisan agreement on border security in Congress that the majority of Republican legislators rejected at the behest of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Refugee agency UNHCR urged the United States to “reconsider restrictions that undermine the fundamental right to seek asylum.”

“The new measures will deny access to asylum to many people in need of international protection and who may now find themselves without a viable option to seek safety and even at risk of return,” he said in a statement issued late Tuesday. referring to a term for returning people to places where they might face persecution.

“Any person who claims to have a well-founded fear of being persecuted in their country of origin must have access to safe territory and have this claim evaluated before being subject to deportation or expulsion,” the agency added.

The U.N. International Organization for Migration, led by Amy Pope, Biden’s former senior migration adviser, was quieter.

“IOM recognizes the challenges posed by increasing irregular migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border,” the organization said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. “It is crucial that any measure adopted to manage migration respects the fundamental right to request asylum, as well as strengthening safe and regular migration pathways.”

Biden’s order will take effect when the number of border encounters between ports of entry reaches 2,500 per day, senior administration officials said. This means the order should take effect immediately, because daily averages are now higher.

The last time the average daily arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico were below 2,500 was in January 2021, the month Biden took office. The last time border encounters decreased to 1,500 per day was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The restrictions would be in effect until two weeks after the number of daily encounters is equal to or less than 1,500 per day between ports of entry, on a seven-day average.

As migration increases around the world with millions of people fleeing wars, famine, climate change or simply seeking a better future for themselves and their families, rich countries have been looking for ways to restrict the influx. Far-right populist parties have been exploiting the issue with anti-immigration rhetoric to win votes in elections from Europe to the United States and beyond.

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Grieshaber reported from Berlin.