#Circumvention of Lawful Pathways

[ailelie]

Circumvention of Lawful Pathways

Deadline to Submit Public Comment: March 27, 2023

The Gist (as far as I understand it):

The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice have proposed a new rule that will limit asylum seekers.

According to this rule, people seeking asylum at the US's southern border will be determined ineligible unless:

the individual is granted parole prior to arrival,

presented themselves at a port of entry through a pre-scheduled time and place, or

sought asylum or other protection in a country they traveled through and received a final denial

The rule also relies heavily on an app of all things: CBP One. The app requires Internet access to function and there have been reports of how buggy it is (e.g, it does not recognize black faces). This is the app asylum seekers require, though, if they want to make an appointment to satisfy the second bullet above.

There are some exceptions to using the app, but they're narrow and require the asylum seeker to come up with a 'preponderance of evidence' to get the app usage waived.

Unaccompanied minors are exempt.

The rule is only supposed to last 2 years, but there's allowances for review, extension, and modification.

If you agree this rule is shitty, you can submit a public comment.

Your comment must be unique. Duplicates will get collapsed into one and only count as one comment.

Click where it says 'comment.'

The form is super easy to follow and fill out. No weird boxes to check or anything like that. It took me about 5 minutes.

Some tips:

Be clear in your opening that you OPPOSE the rule.

Provide a reason (e.g., against my faith to be welcoming to others, against domestic and international law to protect the right to seek asylum, provides an unnaturally high barrier for asylum, relies on faulty technology).

That's it. Here's some sites talking about this if you want more info:

American Immigration Lawyers Association

International Affairs Forum

National Immigrant Justice Center

Asian Americans Advancing Justice

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Catholic Legal Immigration Network

(Even the Heritage Foundation doesn't like this rule. Of course, their reasoning is very different, but they also call for people to oppose the rule. So strange bedfellows, no?)