Letter on Amendments that Would Codify Title 42

Dear Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader McCarthy, Chairwoman DeLauro, and Ranking Member Granger,

The undersigned civil society organizations write to express our grave concern regarding the amendments included in the Fiscal Year 2023 House spending bills for the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services that would legislatively codify and indefinitely prolong the use of the Title 42 policy, which has been used to block and expel asylum seekers and migrants seeking safe haven in the United States. We urge you to ensure that these poison pill riders, or others like them, are not included in any bill that receives a vote on the House floor.

In 1980, the U.S. Congress passed the Refugee Act, codifying in U.S. law the Refugee Convention protections drafted by the international community in the wake of World War II’s atrocities. Today, just forty years later, those vital protections are in grave risk. Title 42 prevents people who clearly qualify for asylum under our laws – based on individual persecution in their homelands – from even making their case. We urge the House of Representatives to reject the misguided political reaction of a few that would result in direct harm to asylum seekers and undermine the integrity of the U.S. asylum system.

“Title 42” may sound innocuous; in reality it is a policy invented by the Trump administration to dismantle the U.S. asylum system, under the guise of specious public health justifications. Keeping Title 42 in place puts refugees at risk, exacerbates chaos at the border, and serves no legitimate public health goals.

The Title 42 expulsions policy harms asylum seekers. Expulsions have blocked people in need of protection from exercising their legal right to seek asylum without so much as a screening for asylum eligibility, as is required under U.S. law. Under Title 42, the U.S. government has routinely sent asylum seekers back to Mexico where they are vulnerable to kidnapping and violent assault, or back to the violence they fled in their countries of origin. Under the Biden administration, there have been over 10,318 reported violent attacks, including kidnapping and rape, against people expelled to Mexico under Title 42. The harms of the Title 42 expulsions fall primarily on Black, Brown and Indigenous asylum seekers. In recognition of the disparate racial impact inherent in the policy, civil rights leaders have called for the end of Title 42 in the name of racial equity and asylum law.

Title 42 does nothing to protect public health. The Title 42 policy was never justified as a public health measure. Senior CDC experts objected to the policy from its inception. Epidemiologists and medical experts have repeatedly confirmed that the Title 42 policy undermines public health responses to COVID-19 and that the pandemic, including emerging variants, can be addressed through existing precautions, such as offering vaccinations, testing, masking, and avoiding the use of congregate detention.

Title 42 sows chaos at the border rather than ameliorating it. Because Title 42 expulsions prevent people fleeing violence from seeking safety at U.S. ports of entry, the policy forces people to undertake repeated attempts to access asylum protections and U.S. immigration officials are actually prevented from enforcing U.S. immigration law. According to CBP data, the percentage of people who have attempted to repeatedly cross the southern border has jumped by over 385 percent from FY 2019 to FY 2022, from seven percent to 27 percent as of May 2022. Transnational organized crime also benefits from the Title 42 policy because without safe pathways to seek protection, migrants are often forced to rely on smugglers to get them to U.S. soil and are driven to dangerous pathways to seek protection.

The amendments passed out of the House Appropriations Committee are particularly harmful because they make Title 42’s rescission contingent on termination of the COVID-19 emergency declaration, a decision with widespread public health and safety ramifications. The decision to end the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration is an incredibly consequential one, as the termination will limit or end the government’s flexibility to respond to COVID-19 related public health needs, including the issuance of waivers or modifications of Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP requirements. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that between 5.3 and 14.2 million people could lose Medicaid coverage when the public health emergency is terminated. Tying asylum access to the public health needs of millions will inject an irrelevant complication into this important decision, with unintended and potentially harmful consequences for both immigration and public health.

We urge you to ensure that these amendments are not included in any legislation that receives a vote on the House floor. Permitting these bills to proceed would irreparably taint decades of congressional commitment to protect refugees and asylum seekers. With countless lives at stake, we expect you to protect, not undermine, the rights of asylum seekers.

Sincerely,

National organizations

African Communities Together

Alianza Americas

America’s Voice

American Civil Liberties Union

American Friends Service Committee

American Immigration Council

American Immigration Lawyers Association

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)

Amnesty International USA

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC

Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence

Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP)

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action

Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)

Bread for the World

Bridges Faith Initiative

Center for Constitutional Rights

Center for Disability Rights

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)

Center for Victims of Torture

Children’s HealthWatch

Church World Service

Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center

Coalition on Human Needs

Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP) /> Community Change Action

Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim

Detention Watch Network

Disciples Immigration Legal Counsel

Disciples Refugee & Immigration Ministries

Doctors for Camp Closure

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Faith In Action (LA RED)

Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement

Families for Freedom

Family Voices

FIRM Action

First Focus Campaign for Children

Freedom for Immigrants (FFI)

Freedom Network USA

Government Accountability Project

Haitian Bridge Alliance

HIAS
Hispanic FederationHuman Rights FirstHuman Rights WatchImmigrant Justice CenterImmigrant Justice CorpsImmigration Law Center Immigration Project (NIPNLG)Immigrant Legal Resource CenterImmigration Equality Action FundInnovation Law LabInstitute for Justice & Democracy in HaitiInternational Mayan LeagueInternational Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)International Rescue CommitteeInterReligious Task Force on Central America and ColombiaJesuit Refugee Service/USAJPIC Office, Adorers of the Blood of Christ, US RegionJustice Action CenterJustice in MotionKids in Need of DefenseKino Border InitiativeLatin America Working Group (LAWG)Leadership Conference on Civil & Human RightsLutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)Maryknoll Office for Global ConcernsNAKASECNational Center for Lesbian RightsNational Center for Parent Leadership, Advocacy, and Community Empowerment (National PLACE)National Council of Jewish Women Education AssociationNational Justice For Our NeighborsNational Network for Immigrant and Refugee RightsNational Partnership for New AmericansNational Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy StudiesNETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social JusticeOxfam AmericaPhysicians for Human RightsPoder LatinxPresente.orgPrevention InstituteProject On Government OversightQuixote CenterRAICESRefugee CongressRefugee Council USARefugees InternationalRespond Crisis TranslationRobert F. Kennedy Human RightsSave the ChildrenService Employees International Union (SEIU)Showing Up for Racial JusticeSisters and Associates of St. FrancisSisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice TeamSojournersSouthern Border Communities CoalitionSouthern Poverty Law Center Action FundT’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human RightsTahirih Justice CenterU.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)UndocuBlack NetworkUnion for Reform JudaismUnitarian Universalist Service CommitteeUnitarian Universalists for Social JusticeUnited We DreamVera Institute of JusticeWashington Office on Latin America (WOLA)Witness at the BorderWomen’s Refugee CommissionYoung Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights

Regional / state / local organizations

Adelanto Visitation & Advocacy Network

Adhikaar

Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc.

Advocating Opportunity

Al Otro Lado

All Souls Unitarian Church

American Gateways

Asian American Advocacy Fund

Asian American Federation

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta

Association for Special Children & Families

Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture

Bend the Arc Jewish Action Pittsburgh

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action – Maryland

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action Champaign-Urbana

Border Kindness

Border Organizing Project

Central American Resource Center – CARECEN – of California Children at Risk

Church Women United in New York State

Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)

Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition

Community Asylum Seekers Project

Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible

El Refugio Ministry

Envision Freedom Fund

Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project

Exceptional Children’s Assistance Center (ECAC)

Federation for Children with Special Needs

Fellowship Southwest

First Friends of New Jersey and New York

Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project

Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network (GAIN)

Georgia Human Rights Clinic

Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights

Good Shepherd

Grassroots Leadership

Guadalupe Presbyterian Church USA, Guadalupe, AZ

Hawaii Families As Allies

Holy Spirit Social Justice

Hope Border Institute

Human Rights Initiative of North Texas

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Immigrant Defenders Law CenterImmigrant Legal Advocacy ProjectImmigration Working Group, SWPA Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in AmericaInter-Faith Committee on Latin AmericaInterfaith Community for Detained Immigrants ChicagoInterfaith Welcome Coalition – San AntonioJewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western MassJewish Family Service of San DiegoJewish Progressive Action (NH)Justice for Our Neighbors El PasoKitsap Immigrant Assistance Center (KIAC)La ConexionLa Raza Community Resource CenterLas Americas Immigrant Advocacy CenterLutheran Social ServicesMaryland Against ICE DetentionMaryland Legislative CoalitionMigrant Center for Human RightsMinnesota Freedom FundMontgomery County Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health, Inc.New Sanctuary Movement of AtlantaNew York Immigration CoalitionNorCal ResistNorth Carolina Justice CenterNorthwest Immigrant Rights ProjectNW Ohio Immigrant Rights NetworkOasis Legal ServicesOPAWL – Building AAPI Feminist LeadershipParents’ Place of MDPEAK Parent CenterRio Grande Borderland MinistriesRocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy NetworkRutgers Law School, Child Advocacy ClinicSan Dieguito United Methodist Church, Encinitas, CASidewalk SchoolSisters of St. Francis of PhiladelphiaSisters of St. Francis, Tiffin, OHSisters of St. Joseph of CarondeletSocial Justice Coalition, Central Lutheran ChurchSPAN Parent Advocacy NetworkSt. James Cathedral, SeattleTakoma Park Mobilization – Equal JusticeTexas Civil Rights ProjectThe Advocates for Human RightsTHRIVE CenterUniversidad PopularUniversity of San Francisco Immigration and Deportation Defense ClinicUnLocalWestchester Jewish Coalition for ImmigrationWind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center