🏴‍☠️☠️HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST SLAMS BIDEN’S ILLEGAL, INHUMANE, INEPT BORDER POLICIES! — Even As Corrupt (Surprise) Rationale For Trump’s Racist Title 42 Policies Revealed, Biden Returns Legal Asylum Seekers To Peril In Mexico With No Due Process, CBP Abuses Continue, & Garland DOJ Mindlessly & Unethically Defends Illegal Actions At Border! — What’s Going On Here?

Dear Paul:   Human Rights First’s work to restore justice at the border took center stage this week. Our experts exposed the political origins of Title 42 and reported on the escalating danger faced by refugees expelled by the Biden administration.   We pushed the administration to more swiftly wind down “Remain in Mexico,” and called out Customs and Border Patrol’s mistreatment of migrants in their custody.   We also announced that Saturday Night Live main cast member Ego Nwodim will host our June 3rd Spring Social, and we have new opportunities to join Human Rights First’s New York City marathon team.

REPORTING ON DANGERS TO REFUGEES EXPELLED TO MEXICO   This week, Human Rights First, RAICES, and the Interfaith Welcome Coalition found that despite the epidemic of violence and kidnappings of migrants and refugees, the Biden administration is using Title 42 to expel adults and families with young children to Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas, MX.

Courtesy Reuters Asylum-seekers in the Remain in Mexico policy living inside a makeshift camp in the Mexican city of Matamoros.   Legal Fellow Julia Neusner highlighted Border Patrol’s shocking mistreatment of refugee and migrant families expelled to danger by the Biden administration in her newest blog post.   EXPOSING TITLE 42 AS A POLITICAL CALCULATION   Our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request today revealed that a Trump administration Centers for Disease Control (CDC) political appointee with no public health expertise “work[ed] on” the Title 42 order’s near “final version” for “days” before the former CDC director signed it.   The findings of our FOIA confirm the political origins of the Title 42 order and further underline that the Biden administration’s continued use of Title 42 to block asylum at the border has no basis in public health.   URGING A SWIFTER WIND DOWN TO “REMAIN IN MEXICO”   Human Rights First led more than 50 organizations and law school clinics yesterday in issuing a letter to the Biden administration urging them to improve their wind down of the Trump administration’s ill-named “Migrant Protection Protocols,” and swiftly bring to safety those stranded under the cruel program.   “The lives and safety of asylum seekers still stranded in Mexico are in the hands of President Biden and his administration,” said Senior Director of Refugee Protection Eleanor Acer.

Courtesy Reuters Migrants sent back to Mexico under MPP occupy a makeshift encampment in Matamoros, Mexico.   PUSHING TO EVACUATE OUR ALLIES FROM AFGHANISTAN   As part of our effort to bring Afghan allies in the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program to safety, President and CEO Michael Breen penned an op-ed calling on President Biden to evacuate those remaining in the program.   “Leaving allies behind would strike at the very core of who we believe ourselves to be and fly in the face of our most sacred creed. What faith would we have left in ourselves? Who would ever stand with us again?” he wrote.

Take Action

You can join our effort to save our SIVs by contacting your Members of Congress and urging them to take action to protect these allies, many of whom sacrificed so much to work with American forces.   CELEBRATING HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AT OUR SPRING SOCIAL   We’re excited to announce that Saturday Night Live’s Ego Nwodim will be hosting our Virtual Spring Social LIVE on June 3rd at 6:30pm EST!     Also featuring special guests Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Grace and Frankie), Leeza Gibbons, Hill Harper, and an exclusive musical performance from mxmtoon, with more to come!   Don’t miss this festive, empowering event honoring human rights defenders.   Tickets start at $100.

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MARATHONING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS   Human Rights First has charity bibs for the 2021 TCS NYC Marathon!   If you want to be a part of the historic 50th marathon and support human rights, please complete our interest form by tomorrow, May 20.

EXPANDING OUR TEAM TO MEET NEW CHALLENGES   Human Rights First empowers Americans to fight for justice in our own communities and around the world. Our staff succeed at bringing real change, and many have gone on to lead at all levels of government.

Now, we’re seeking new talent to join this passionate and effective team.

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Requiring the restoration of the legal asylum system at the border is a legal and moral imperative that Garland continues to ignore (compare “Gonzo” Sessions’s willingness to use bogus legal opinions to effectively order DHS to institute illegal, racist, xenophobic policies like “family separation” at the border and an illegal end to DACA).

If Garland had acted promptly and competently, a “New EOIR” unburdened by bogus Trump-era anti-asylum precedents, with a new progressive BIA, and with asylum expert judges assigned to border asylum cases could be working through those cases right now without denying anyone’s rights! It’s not “mission impossible” despite all the right wing blather, reinforced to a large extent by the Biden Administration’s remarkable inability to handle a very predictable border scenario in accordance with the law and best practices, compounded by their inept and uninformed “flackies” whose lack of knowledge about the realities of our immigration system, the human impact, and the very future of our justice system and our democracy at stake continue to be mind boggling!

It’s not going to happen until Garland wises up, removes the “Miller leftovers” at EOIR, and puts progressive experts in charge of repairing and reforming the Immigration Courts as well as restoring law and order at the border. Knowledge is power! And the lack of human rights, immigration, asylum, due process, gender, racial equity, and Immigration Court expertise at DOJ is killing the Biden Administration, along with the folks they are illegally and immorally returning to danger and abuse every day!

Also, a greatly upgraded PIO Team that actually understands immigration, human rights, due process, and their links to racial justice policies, the economy, and other Administration priorities and can provide compelling, factually accurate information in support of reestablishing our legal immigration system and due process should also be a “must do” for the Biden Administration! The fascist, nativist right “misinformation and distortion factory” is “loaded for bear” on these issues; it’s once again “Amateur Night at the Bijou” for the Biden immigration and legal reform efforts, particularly at the inept and apparently clueless DOJ! It should not, and must not continue, to be this way!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-20-21