Rep. Ilhan Omar Statement on the Biden Administration's New Border Policies
WASHINGTON – Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) released the following statement on President Biden's announcement of new border enforcement policies yesterday.
"I am deeply disappointed by the Biden Administration’s announcement yesterday expanding the use of the inhumane and ineffective Trump-era Title 42 policies. The right to seek asylum is a fundamental human right, enshrined in U.S. and international law. By definition, under both domestic and international law, no person seeking asylum is crossing the border 'illegally.' The proposed transit ban represents a dereliction of our responsibilities to our fellow human beings.
"I am also seriously concerned about further entrenching a precedent by which our asylum policies depend less on the credible fears individual people are facing and more on geopolitical considerations. I support the new parole options for Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians, but there is no moral or legal reason they should not also be available for Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans. Similarly, I wholeheartedly welcome and applaud the decision to triple refugee resettlement from the Americas, and I strongly urge the Biden Administration to prioritize those new refugees based on need and need alone.
"The problems at our Southern border do not begin at our Southern border – people from the Americas are fleeing their countries for a reason. We should be honest and admit that some of those reasons are related to U.S. foreign policy—including draconian sanctions, a failed war on drugs, blanket support for multinational corporations over indigenous rights, and a decades-long embargo on Cuba. We have to break the cycle where our policies exacerbate instability and violence, and then we turn away the very people trying to flee those conditions.
"I recognize the political reality of the immigration debate in Washington, particularly with a Republican Party determined to politicize the suffering of hundreds of thousands of human beings without any willingness to actually work toward solutions to a safer and more humane immigration system. I appreciate the Biden Administration’s willingness to consider creative solutions to these problems, but I will continue to press for a humane asylum process, which is not only the right thing to do but is our legal obligation."