Current negotiations surrounding President Biden’s proposed budget have included suggested rollbacks of critical asylum protections, such as raising the credible fear standard, increasing immigration detention, and instituting asylum caps. The White House has also indicated its willingness to limit asylum rights in exchange for humanitarian aid. USCRI is concerned about the attacks on the right to seek asylum and […]
Category: Asylum
Administration Enroute to Institute a Transit Ban on Asylum and Expand the Use of Expedited Removal: USCRI Urges the Administration to Reverse Course
In a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week, the current administration moved forward with its intent to “place additional conditions on asylum eligibility” after the use of Title 42 ends. This builds upon the January 5 announcement, from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to implement new border enforcement measures. Despite hundreds […]
Expanding Title 42, Again, Fails Even More Asylum Seekers
Today, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced new border enforcement measures to expand the use of Title 42 for Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans, severely limiting their ability to apply for asylum. More than two million asylum seekers and migrants have been expelled from the United States under Title 42 since its inception in […]
The Expanded Use of Title 42 Places More Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Harm’s Way
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on October 12, 2022, that it will expel Venezuelans entering without authorization at the southern border to Mexico through the use of Title 42, an obscure provision of public health law that allows border officials to rapidly expel asylum seekers and migrants to Mexico or their home […]
USCRI Policy Brief – New Asylum Rule: More Steps and Shorter Timelines
The new asylum rule has made significant changes to one of the two pathways to asylum in the United States. Most significantly, the new rule establishes a positive credible fear determination as the application for asylum, a new asylum merits interview conducted by an asylum officer (AO), and the use of a status conference in […]
USCRI Calls for DHS Investigation of the Unlawful Detention of Unaccompanied Children in Hotels
Nelson Mandela wrote, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than how it treats its children.” The United States continues to lose its way in how we treat the unaccompanied children fleeing the intractable violence, endemic poverty, and widespread lawlessness of the countries located in the Northern Triangle—Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. […]
Statement on the Conditions at the Irwin County Detention Center
Media reports on conditions at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia paint a picture of neglect, mistreatment and abuse of migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The facility houses immigrant detainees, along with inmates for Irwin County and the U.S. Marshals Service. Most concerning are reports of women being subjected to […]
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Statement on the COVID-19 Pandemic
ARLINGTON, VA – The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) expresses its solidarity with our global community in their efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This kind of pervasive and far-reaching global event reminds us all that we share one planet and our lives are inextricably linked together in an unbroken chain of […]
USCRI Statement on the Decision to Further Restrict Immigration
ARLINGTON, VA – Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a rationale for further eroding legal immigration to the U.S., the Administration has halted issuing green cards to applicants outside of the country until the end of the year. The ban also includes many temporary work visas, including H-1B visas, used by the technology sector, and H-2B […]
Understanding Migration: Mixed Migration
In an earlier brief, we discussed the common pushpull model of migration. To recap, push factors and pull factors are approximations—part of a cognitive model of how migration operates—to describe the reasons that individuals might emigrate (push factors) and the reasons why individuals might settle in a particular location (pull factors). However, the push-pull model […]
