No Public Health Rationale to Ban Asylum Seekers

Washington, DC – Yesterday, several faith-based organizations who work directly with immigrants and refugees submitted comments on an interim final rule promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The rule, combined with an order also issued by the CDC, has blocked all asylum applications at U.S. borders, citing the coronavirus pandemic.

Together, these organizations point out that the rule and order violate numerous legal requirements the United States must observe; rely on age-old anti-immigrant stereotypes; have no actual public health value; put children and adults fleeing violence in harms’ way; and offend moral and religious values. 

“The Trump administration is using our national health emergency as a vapid excuse to enact its long-standing, anti-immigration agenda. Opportunism is evident both in these CDC actions as well as the new White House Executive Order suspending legal immigration,” said Faith Williams, Associate Director of Government Relations & Advocacy at the National Council of Jewish Women and Co-Chair of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition. 

“Blaming immigrants for disease is a long-standing strategy of racists and nativists,” Williams continued. “It is part of the dehumanization of immigrants this Administration uses on a daily basis. As a consequence of this policy, thousands of people who have fled danger are being turned away without even a hearing. This has nothing to do with stemming the spread of a virus that is already here, and everything to do with President Trump’s long-standing anti-immigration agenda. The CDC rule and order must be reversed.”   

In their comment to the CDC, Franciscan Action Network (FAN) points out that “[t]here is no evidence that COVID-19 was introduced into the United States by land travel from our southern or northern borders. The administration is using a public health crisis to undo the asylum process, a goal it has unsuccessfully attempted to achieve legally.”

The United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society outlines numerous laws and treaties that the policy attempts to circumvent, including “Domestic legal obligations to asylum-seekers [and] the Refugee Convention and Refugee Protocol (Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-212), which requires the United States not to send individuals to places where they may face serious harm amounting to persecution…. The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the United States is a party (Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-277; see 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c).” 

IIC leaders and organizations also explain how the Administration is using specious public health arguments, disproved by medical experts, to enact a previously-formulated anti-immigrant agenda–and that this discrimination strategy has historical roots. In one comment, Rev. Dr. Sharon Stanley-Rea, Director, Disciples Refugee & Immigration Ministries cites Paul Spiegel at Johns Hopkins University, who wrote about the historical blaming of immigrants for disease: There is no evidence to show that migrants are spreading disease. That is a false argument that is used to keep migrants out.”

Stanley-Rea further points out: “Such an approach falls tragically in line with other instances of historical discrimination against immigrants seeking to enter the U.S., when notions of health risks from potential immigrants were perceived as far greater than actual dangers. Indeed, as chronicled in The Foreignness of Germs: The Persistent Association of Immigrants and Disease in American Society, ‘Anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy have often been framed by an explicitly medical language….(while) the number of ‘diseased’ immigrants has always been infinitesimal when compared with the number of newcomers admitted to this country.’” 

The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) reminds us that the “United States is currently the world epicenter of the COVID-19 virus, with more than 829,051 cases. By way of contrast, Mexico has reported only 9,501 cases. The countries from which the majority of asylum seekers at the southern border come also have very low incidence of COVID-19, with the current numbers being: Honduras, 510 cases; Guatemala 316 cases; and El Salvador 237 cases. Indeed the greatest public health risk to these Northern Triangle countries may be presented by the United States’ continuing deportation of Central American citizens who have been physically present in the United States and are carrying the virus.”

Likewise, Church World Service explains: “[P]ublic health experts agree that there is no public health rationale for a ban on asylum seekers as a group, as there is no epidemiological evidence to suggest certain groups of people are at a higher or lower risk of contracting or spreading the virus, making any categorical classification is itself discriminatory. There is no reason to believe that closing the border has any effect whatsoever on the spread of this virus that is already here. This rule’s wrongful, blanket denial of asylum seekers is ineffective and serves only to discriminate against people – including unaccompanied children – fleeing violence and persecution.” 

Rev. Mark Stephenson, Director of the Office of Social Justice for the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) points out in his comment that: “almost 400 children have been deported without due procedure to countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, which all struggle with poverty, violence, and instability,” since the order went into effect.

If the policy is rescinded, faith and community-based groups stand ready to assist asylum-seekers as they have been doing for years. The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns writes: “Maryknoll missioners and affiliated volunteers have worked in shelters for migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border for many decades. We are aware that these shelters have recently expressed their capacity to shelter asylum seekers during the mandatory stay-at-home order period. In cooperating with these non-governmental organizations to shelter asylum seekers while they await their hearings during the pandemic, using community monitoring as an alternative to immigrant detention, the CDC could both promote the best interest of asylum seekers and the public health of border communities.”

Disciples Immigration Legal Counsel Natalie B. Teague, Esq. writes: “The proposed CDC rule appears to have been meticulously sculpted to only dissect a particular group of immigrants who most resemble those fleeing violence from Central America, who may include unaccompanied minors, and who may include victims of human trafficking.  All of these groups are entitled to specific legal protections and procedures upon arriving at the U.S. border without valid entry documents and with a colorable claim for asylum and humanitarian protection.”

Adds Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service: “In just a matter of weeks, the administration has weaponized the pandemic to end asylum at the border and decimate protections for unaccompanied children. Public health challenges cannot negate our humanitarian responsibilities under international law, nor can they invalidate our obligation to grant due process to unaccompanied migrant children under the U.S.’s own Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). There is no justification for heartlessly forcing vulnerable kids into the U.S.-engineered slums of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program.”  

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). “Both [the interim final rule and order] violate our deeply held religious beliefs and impede our ability to fulfill our commitment to treat all people with dignity and respect, especially those who are most vulnerable including asylum seekers and unaccompanied children.”  

Again speaking to the weak public health justification behind these policies, LCWR continues: “We know from our own experience of working with immigrants along the Southwest border that the vast majority of asylum-seekers have relatives or friends in the United States where they could safely self-isolate, if necessary. An October 2019 study of 607 asylum-seekers subject to the Remain in Mexico program found that nearly 92 percent had family or close friends in the United States.”

In their comment, the Sisters of Mercy Justice Team also dismantles the Administration’s public health argument: “The assumption seems to be that undocumented persons are more likely to carry the virus, which makes no sense. The greater danger for migrants is detention in crowded, unsanitary jails and detention centers.”

They also state: “We must not take advantage of a global health crisis to further entrench a cruel and inhumane immigration policy.” 

The Interfaith Immigration Coalition is made up of 55 national, faith-based organizations brought together across many theological traditions with a common call to seek just policies that lift up the God-given dignity of every individual. In partnership, we work to protect the rights, dignity, and safety of all refugees and migrants. 

Follow us on Twitter @interfaithimm


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