SAN DIEGO, CA – The Ninth Circuit Court last week sided with Al Otro Lado, a non-profit legal services organization that assists migrants in the U.S. – Mexico border and those who have been harmed by asylum policy, reported the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The 9th upheld the group’s argument the government’s “systematic turnbacks (‘metering’)” directed at asylum seekers along the southern border is unlawful, added CCR.
Since 2016, added CCR, aside from metering, the government has employed intimidation, coercion, and physical abuse tactics to bar asylum seekers from entering the U.S. leaving them vulnerable in “precarious” Mexico and at risk of “violence and exploitation.”
As a result of metering policy, many asylum seekers have died, “were raped, sold, tortured, or disappeared… because CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) turned them away,” said Al Otro Lado’s Border Rights Project Director Nicole Elizabeth Ramos.
The emphasis for the consideration of international human rights and norms is also at the forefront of the lawsuit.
“Respect for the rule of law and international human rights still matters” and it is hypocritical of the U.S. to have established immigration and asylum policies yet continues to implement policies that “deny access to that process,” said Nicole Elizabeth Ramos.
The lawsuit was first filed in 2017 on behalf of Al Otro Lado, claiming the government’s turnbacks were unlawful and in 2021, a district court judge “declared the metering policy unlawful, finding that U.S. law requires officers to inspect and process asylum seekers” arriving at the ports of entry and allow them to seeks protection in the U.S., reported CCR.
Despite this declaration, under the Biden administration, turnback practices expanded, “making most people seeking safety at the southern border categorically ineligible for asylum” and those who were lucky enough to obtain an appointment through the government’s “flawed CBP one smartphone app have been permitted” to pursue asylum, noted the CCR.
According to Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, “our government has a legal duty to provide a fair and meaningful legal process” to asylum seekers and emphasized that metering practices “violates our laws, exacerbates chaos at the border, and places refugees directly in harm’s way.”
Despite this order, the government has a long way to go in improving asylum seeking practices but there is hope, CCR maintains.
A senior staff attorney for CCR stated the group was glad the legal system recognized these discrepancies and “saw fit to declare that the U.S. has an unmistakable duty to process these individuals as they come.”
