Report
Published on June 9, 2023
This report documents impediments facing people attempting to seek asylum at the U.S. port of entry in Nogales, Arizona following the end of the Title 42 policy on May 11, 2023. While the Biden administration finally ended its use of that illegal policy, the administration has implemented other steps to deny or delay access to asylum at the southwest border, including limits that force asylum seekers to wait for weeks or months for processing at ports of entry and a new asylum ban that went into effect on May 11, 2023. The new rule unlawfully renders ineligible for asylum most refugees who cross the border outside of ports of entry as well as those who seek asylum at a port of entry without one of the highly limited CBP One appointments. The asylum ban violates U.S. law and core principles of international refugee law binding on the United States, as Members of Congress, UNHCR, former immigration judges, the asylum officer’s union and many others have confirmed. The asylum ban will return refugees to persecution, torture, and death in their home countries and other countries where their lives are at risk.
U.S. immigration law makes clear that people in search of refuge can seek asylum at U.S. ports of entry and/or after entering the United States through other means. The right to seek asylum is protected regardless of whether someone entered at a designated port of entry. U.S. immigration and refugee law can no longer be evaded through use of the specious Title 42 “public health” policy. The right to seek asylum is a fundamental human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and treaties binding on the United States as well as customary international law prohibit the return of refugees to places where they risk persecution.
Yet, in Heroica Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, (“Nogales, Mexico”) people waiting to seek asylum at the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry face a barrage of logistical and legal barriers, despite the clear provisions of U.S. and international law forbidding such restrictions. These include:
The Nogales DeConcini Port of Entry is the only port of entry which accepts CBP One appointments for the entire Arizona/Sonora border. Therefore, any asylum seeker for hundreds of miles in either direction must travel to Nogales, Mexico should they secure an appointment using the CBP One app. The other smaller ports of entry along the Arizona/Sonora border are Class B or C ports, meaning they do not operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week (as the Nogales DeConcini port of entry does), and they lack significant resources to process more than a handful of asylum seekers per day. Moreover, the other smaller ports tend to be in remote parts of the Arizona desert, where the Sonoran towns directly across from the U.S. ports have high levels of organized crime; in fact, there have previously been incidents of active warfare between different cells of organized crime along certain Sonoran highways leading from the remote towns to Nogales, Mexico. Simply put, the Nogales Port of Entry is the only option for many vulnerable asylum seekers for hundreds of miles. And yet, even Nogales, Mexico is not a safe place to wait to secure a CBP One appointment or wait outside the port of entry.
The research in this report stems from the work of the Kino Border Initiative, The Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, and Human Rights First. The Kino Border Initiative (KBI) is a binational, Catholic organization, locally rooted in Ambos Nogales on the Mexico–U.S. border. Its mission is to promote humane, just, and workable migration through: direct humanitarian assistance and holistic accompaniment of migrants, education and encounter to awaken solidarity with migrants, and policy advocacy in Mexico and the U.S. The Florence Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides free legal and social services to the thousands of adults and children detained in immigration custody in Arizona on any given day. The Florence Project was founded in 1989 to provide free legal services to asylum seekers and other migrants in remote Arizona immigration detention centers and in 2017 expanding their services to migrants and asylum seekers in Heroica Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The Florence Project’s vision is to ensure that all immigrants have access to counsel, understand their rights under the law, and are treated fairly and humanely. Human Rights First is a U.S.–based human rights organization that is working to track, as it did with the Remain in Mexico, Title 42 policy, and the Trump administration’s asylum transit ban, denials of access to asylum and other harms inflicted by the Biden administration’s asylum ban.
