Yesterday, the administration announced a new set of measures in anticipation of the termination of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that restricts access to asylum and expels migrants at the Southern border. Though it is promising to see the administration focusing on addressing the needs of refugees within the Western Hemisphere — increasing resettlement, expanding family reunification opportunities, and establishing new regional processing centers in Colombia, Guatemala and other countries — such improvements should not come at the expense of meaningful access to asylum along our southern border.

Last week, the U.S. and Canadian governments expanded their 2002 “safe third country” agreement to allow both countries to expel vulnerable people seeking asylum who have crossed the countries’ shared border in between ports of entry. The expansion of the deal was negotiated in secret a year ago and became effective just three days after its announcement on March 25.

These disappointing decisions continue a troubling pattern of foreclosing important protections for immigrant survivors.

The Department of Homeland Security issued broad new directives to immigration officers that will go into effect on November 29, 2021. Although these new enforcement and deportation guidelines clarify that not everyone who is an undocumented immigrant should, or can, be removed from the United States, the memo gives worryingly broad discretion to individual ICE and CBP agents to carry out the enforcement priorities and risks the removal of survivors of gender-based violence.

The Tahirih Justice Center strongly condemns the administration’s racist and brutal mistreatment of Haitian refugees at the U.S. southern border.

USCIS announced the implementation of a policy that allows U-visa petitioners within the U.S. who submit complete applications and pass a background check to receive a work permit and protection from deportation almost immediately, rather than waiting years in a backlogged system.

Yesterday, the Tahirih Justice Center filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in federal court to compel the government to release records about United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ […]