“I am only here because of what happened to me in my country”
“I am only here because of what happened to me in my country. I didn’t know how difficult this journey would be. I left my country with five other people and I am the only one out of that group that survived. I saw people die in the jungle trying to cross rivers, just very difficult things to witness, and now to see this tragedy here in the US is really heartbreaking. And honestly, being here now in Brownsville, I am scared.” These are the paraphrased words of Jose*, an asylum seeker from Venezuela that I spoke to in Brownsville last month during a vigil for the eight asylum seekers who were murdered and ten others injured while waiting at a bus station when a man ran his car into them.
Jose further went on to tell me that he fled Venezuela because he had no other choice. He was held as a “political prisoner” because he worked for the government in food distribution and would see the corruption happening. He mentioned attending protests and in one of them, a military tank ran over people protesting and chaos ensued. He was arrested and kept as a political prisoner for 3 days with no food and beaten. After his release he feared the worst and knew he had no choice but to flee for his safety.
Asylum seekers are fleeing their country in pursuit of safety only to be met with further dangerous conditions on their journey, upon arrival to the southern Mexico-USA border, and now even in the USA. After Title 42 ended asylum seekers can no longer be expelled back without the opportunity to seek asylum, however new legal barriers are being implemented to continue the eradication of asylum law as we know it.
*Jose is a fictitious name used to protect the identity of this asylum seeker.
Complex Legal Barriers
CBP One App
Children, families, and people fleeing for safety are met with both physical barriers and complex legal barriers to seeking asylum. With the end of Title 42, asylum seekers are now forced to still remain in Mexico in asylum encampments with little to no resources while they wait to obtain an appointment to be processed “legally” with use of the CBP One app. There are 1,000 slots available per day for the entire southern border and many still have issues with accessing the app or other barriers. If an asylum seeker presents at a point of entry (POE) without a CBP One appointment they can be presumed ineligible for asylum unless they meet a limited exception as to why they were unable to access the CBP One app.
Circumvention of Lawful Pathways Rule
Once a CBP One appointment has been obtained an asylum seeker can now present at a POE for processing with immigration officials. However, under the new circumvention of lawful pathways rule otherwise known as the “asylum transit ban” an asylum seeker must have requested and been denied asylum in another country they traveled through before reaching the southern border. If they do not do so, they will be presumed ineligible for asylum unless they “rebut this presumption based on exceptionally compelling circumstances”. The exceptionally compelling circumstances as you can imagine, will be very difficult to rebut, and are left to the discretion of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents .
Title 8: Credible Fear Interview in CBP Custody
Returning to Title 8 proceedings allows for an asylum seeker to state their fear of returning back to their home country and an asylum officer is required to assess their credibility. This process includes being expeditiously removed if no credible fear is found along with a 5 year reentry bar, and possible criminal prosecution for an illegal reentry after being removed. Under the Biden administration, credible fear interviews will be conducted over the phone while asylum seekers are in the custody of CBP. Typically not an environment that is conducive to disclosing your worst fears of past or future persecution and makes it difficult to access legal counsel. Indeed, the National Immigrant Justice Center has already found that this is “undermining access to counsel, and that the program appears designed to rush people through to deportation without legal advice or representation.”
Concluding Thoughts
Requiring asylum seekers to (1) request asylum in other unsafe countries as per the new “asylum ban rule” (2) obtain a CBP One appointment for processing at a POE, and (3) not doing so will presume them ineligible for asylum–this is complete eradication of asylum law as we know it. Allowing people to seek asylum at ports of entry is the law under the Immigration and Nationality Act 8 U.S.C. §1158(a)(1) which states anyone regardless of how they entered the United States may seek asylum.
The reason asylum law was enshrined in our national and international laws was to protect people from being returned to their persecutors as it happened during the Holocaust. We seem to forget that this country has a legal obligation to provide protection to those who qualify as refugees/asylees. Families, children, and people seeking asylum deserve to find safety and stories like the one Jose disclosed to me at a vigil where asylum seekers were murdered in the US is a telltale sign that we must do better. No one deserves to have their journey cut short because they were in search of safety.
The river, the physical wall, and now complex legal walls are how we, as a country, receive people fleeing precarious situations and who are further compounded with more trauma during their journey to the southern border. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end at the border because in the interior of our country, the trauma, the dehumanization, and the legal barriers continue.
Stay tuned for my next blog on our government’s current response at the state and federal level.
The above photo is at the memorial site where 8 asylum seekers in Brownsville, Texas were murdered while waiting at a bus stop across from a migrant shelter.
The above photo is in Brownsville, Texas at the second vigil for asylum seekers murdered while waiting at a bus stop. Pictured (left to right) are Heather Malkawi with Texas Impact, Caly Fernandez with Puentes de Cristo, and Fabi Olvera Benitez with Texas Impact.