by Melissa Stek|Published November 16, 2022
WASHINGTON, DC — Yesterday, a federal judge ruled against asylum-blocking Title 42, deeming it a violation of U.S. asylum law with no basis in public health. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded by filing a stay that would delay implementation of the court order by five weeks as the Biden administration prepares its new border policies.
Since March of 2020, Title 42 has been used to wrongfully turn away millions of asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border, under the guise of protecting public health. Despite promises to put an end to the Trump-era policy, the Biden administration expanded Title 42 last month to expel nearly all Venezuelans seeking refuge at the border. In response, over 420 faith organizations and leaders sent a letter to DHS urging them to reverse the expansion, put an end to Title 42, and restore access to asylum for all seeking safety.
Faith communities across the nation have remained steadfast in their faith-rooted commitment to welcoming and extending hospitality to those that are in need and call on the Biden administration to accept the ruling and use this important moment to rebuild the U.S. asylum system to welcome people fleeing persecution with dignity.
“The recent ruling spelled out what advocates have been saying all along,” said Katie Adams, Policy Advocate with the United Church of Christ and Interim Chair of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition. “There is no public health merit in the use of Title 42. Its use has led to grievous harm to those seeking asylum – which is a moral and legal right. Lamentations reminds us that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning; each day we have the chance to begin again. What if we as a country were as committed to dreaming about what a compassionate and dignified welcome would look like as we’ve been to building up border walls and expelling migrants? It’s a new morning and the faith community stands ready to help rebuild our asylum program to provide a welcome to all who seek it.”
“This ruling is an important step in working towards finally restoring asylum at our border,” said Dylan Corbett, Executive Director, Hope Border Institute. “As a border community, we see daily the tragic human consequences of asylum-denying policies like Title 42. Judge Sullivan’s ruling provides the Biden administration with a clear opportunity to do the right thing and put into place policies which welcome vulnerable persons on the move with dignity and compassion.”
“We welcome the recent federal court ruling blocking Title 42,” said Barbara Weinstein, Director of the Reform Jewish Movement’s Commission on Social Action. “The ruling is another recognition of what we have known since the start – that this policy is inhumane, illegal, and has been a stain on American immigration policy for far too long. Deuteronomy teaches the importance of protecting those fleeing dangerous conditions, telling of the imperative to protect the escaped enslaved person—an archetype of someone fleeing to safety in a new land because of physical danger (23:16). Our commitment to a just immigration and asylum policy is rooted in this text and our own history as a people fleeing persecution. We urge the Biden administration to swiftly accept this ruling and welcome asylum seekers with the dignity, respect, and due process they deserve.”
“We pray this court decision will lead to a reimagination and rebuilding of border and asylum policy that will have at its heart respect for the dignity of all who come to our borders” said Anna Gallagher, Executive Director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., or CLINIC. “The U.S. has the resources to move quickly and create well-functioning systems that honor the right to seek asylum — we only need commitment, creativity, and compassion.”
“A U.S. judge has temporarily vacated Title 42 — the order that used the pandemic as an excuse to deny people the right to pursue asylum in the United States — calling it arbitrary and capricious,” said Pedro Rios, Director of U.S.-Mexico Border Program with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). “The decision reaffirms what organizations on the ground have been arguing all along: the United States must uphold asylum, as required by federal law and international agreements. Asylum seekers should be welcomed with dignity, afforded all due process rights, and not subjected to further harm.”
“It is a moral outrage to see the ways this administration has continued the Trump legacy of rejecting asylum seekers through a false premise of public health and misuse of Title 42,” said Rev. Noel Andersen, Director of Grassroots Organizing, Church World Service. “Faith communities across the country have been working to welcome asylum seekers through direct service and assistance with the legal and integration process while continuing to speak out about the immoral use of Title 42. This federal court ruling is a victory for asylum seekers and all those who are working to restore our asylum program to the integrity it deserves. We call upon this administration and our Congress to uphold our asylum laws and respond with enhanced funding and infrastructure to welcome asylum seekers with dignity.”
“For the past two years, Title 42 has blocked hundreds of thousands of people from exercising their right to seek protection in the United States. These people, including families with young children, had dreams of building a life free from danger,” said Dr. Kim Lamberty, Quixote Center Executive Director. “Deterrence-based immigration policies are just as ineffective as they are cruel. We hope the U.S. government takes this court ruling as an opportunity to lead with compassion instead of xenophobia and restore humane and orderly asylum processing.”
“The harmful and immoral Title 42 policy has expelled and turned away families and individuals seeking a safe place to call home,” said Meredith Owen, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Church World Service. “Title 42 was never about public health, serving only as a tool to wrongfully and unlawfully prevent the most vulnerable from protection. The faith community has resolutely denounced Title 42 expulsions and all anti-asylum policies that have resulted in forcing people to return back to harm they fled. CWS commends this ruling and urges the administration to accept this decision, fully restore all asylum protections, and finish the job of righting the wrongs of family separation and other anti-asylum practices.”
“This ruling is yet another step in recognizing that Title 42’s purported public health rationale put asylum seekers at significant risk and should be terminated,” said Naomi Steinberg, Vice President, U.S. Policy & Advocacy, HIAS. “While we recognize that the full resolution of this case is not yet final, we urge the Biden administration to use this opportunity to move expeditiously to start to fix or broken asylum system in such a way that it addresses the real challenges at the border, while also ensuring that asylum seekers are able to avail themselves of a safe, humane, and legal system.”
“We are encouraged by the U.S. District Court’s decision to void Title 42, a public health order that effectively closed the U.S. border to asylum seekers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Joan Rosenhauer, Executive Director, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. “Almost three years after this inhumane policy was first implemented, we have seen first-hand the negative impact it has had on thousands of individuals and families seeking safety in the U.S. We encourage the Biden Administration to accept and implement this ruling as quickly and effectively as possible and look forward to accompanying and serving asylum seekers as they petition for protection in the U.S.”
“Finally, a federal court judge has ruled what advocates for a just, moral immigration system have long been claiming: that Title 42 was not about public health but was wrongly used by two administrations to deter asylum seekers,” said Sister Marie Lucey, Associate Director of Franciscan Action Network. “Franciscans welcome this ruling and urge the Biden Administration and Congress to begin work immediately to restore asylum protections and create a safe, humane and workable system that acknowledges the dignity and rights of sisters and brothers who seek safety in this country from harmful situations in their home countries.”
“Title 42 has been an injustice set upon vulnerable migrants since it started in 2020 and we celebrate the federal court ruling to block it,” said Susan Gunn, Director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. “Maryknoll missioners working along the U.S.-Mexico border have seen too many migrants’ lives put at risk by this supposed public health rule. We ask President Biden to accept this ruling and use it as an opportunity to build a fair, orderly, and welcoming system at the border for people seeking asylum. One of the first steps is for Congress to take money it already spends on the bloated border police force and repurpose it to make sure immigration agencies and federal courts have what they need to adjudicate asylum claims in a fair and orderly manner. The need is urgent, the money is there, and we can and must do better.”
“We welcome and affirm the district court’s decision vacating Title 42,” said Elket Rodríguez, Field Personnel and Team Leader of the Advocacy Team for Immigrants and Refugees for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. “We are hopeful that this decision will reduce the number of kidnapped, raped, and abused migrants in northern Mexico. It is now all the more important for the administration to immediately restore a fair, orderly, and timely asylum process.”
“T’ruah welcomes the good news that Title 42 has been blocked by a federal court,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. “As Jews, we know that immigration policy can be a matter of life or death. Many of our own families fled danger to find refuge in the United States, and many of our family members died after this country’s borders were closed to them. Seeking asylum is a fundamental, protected human right. Asylum seekers must be welcomed with a dignified, just, transparent, and timely system to gain legal entry into the United States.”
“Imagine the relief of those who now know that, after surviving the treacherous thousands of miles, they will not be summarily deported through Title 42 to Mexico or their home countries, which increasingly are inhospitable. We raise our thanks and thoughts to those who work directly with the migrants and asylum seekers that come to this nation seeking safety. We remind our sisters and brothers that we welcome all, grounded in the knowledge that each and every one of us is endowed with dignity given to us by God,” said Fran Eskin-Royer, Executive Director of the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
“We celebrate and feel encouraged by Judge Sullivan’s decision to end the inhumane Title 42 policy. This is a major step in addressing our broken immigration process that has been riddled with bigotry,” said Rabbi Joshua Lesser, President of Bridges Faith Initiative. “We urge the Biden administration to further this step of improving the asylum process so that we can ensure the dignity of all those who seek safety.”
“While we recognize that it will take some time before this case is fully resolved, we are relieved that this ruling recognizes that Title 42 has no public health rationale and has been used improperly to put asylum seekers at risk. What is needed is an orderly and humane asylum system with enough resources and coordination on both sides of the border to ensure due process and equitable treatment,” said HIAS’ President and CEO Mark Hetfield. “We have been troubled by the Biden Administration’s recent expansion of Title 42 as part of its new program to admit up to 24,000 Venezuelans under humanitarian parole while expelling a much larger number to Mexico – a move that amounted to establishing what was ostensibly an emergency measure as a seemingly permanent instrument of U.S. immigration policy.”
“We are looking forward to seeing the details of the new policies DHS officials say they are preparing to implement at the border. Keeping Title 42 in place in the meantime isn’t the answer,” Hetfield continued. “Since President Biden came into office promising to end Title 42, we call on the administration to take this opportunity to embark swiftly on the comprehensive repair of the asylum system that we need to meet the challenges at our southern border, and to reclaim the nation’s tradition of leadership when it comes to protecting the right to asylum.”
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