Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced new border enforcement measures that are two-fold: they include a new pathway for Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans to enter the United States if they have U.S.-based sponsors and have the resources to fly to the U.S. This new program of temporary admission, called “parole,” will offer some people the opportunity to enter the U.S. legally.
But, at the same time, the administration also announced an expansion of Title 42, a policy that allows for the rapid expulsion of individuals back to those same countries without the opportunity to apply for asylum. This means that Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans attempting to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border will now be turned away if they did not go through the parole program first.
While we applaud the Biden administration’s decision to offer new ways for people to come lawfully to the United States, we are concerned about it being paired with enforcement measures that cut off asylum access at the border for thousands of migrants fleeing violence and disaster who do not have the economic means to qualify for the new parole program.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Bob Menendez (D-NY) are being joined by their colleagues in both the House and Senate in issuing a letter urging the Biden administration to stand by their commitment to restore and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.
This Trump-era ban on asylum for people who travel through another country on their way to the U.S. goes directly against our values. Many critics are concerned that the expansion of Title 42 and the new transit ban will further erode the legal right to seek asylum and put many more people in danger, particularly Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ people.
We are proud to join 291 civil, human rights, and immigrant rights groups along with Representatives Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Grijalva (D-AZ), and Casar (D-TX) and Senators Menendez (D-NJ), Booker (D-NJ), Padilla (D-CA), and Luján (D-NM) in urging the Biden administration against expanding Title 42 and resurrecting the Trump-era asylum ban. Send a direct message to your members of Congress, urging them to sign on today!
As a nation of immigrants, we must expand safe, legal pathways to the U.S. while maintaining order at our Southern border. Expanding the use of Title 42 is inhumane and is a Trump-era policy that disproportionately harms Black and brown migrants. The right to seek asylum is a fundamental human right and we have a moral obligation to establish a system that treats all migrants in a safe and humane way.
Take Action
Subscribe
Donate
The Coalition on Human Needs Thursday night marked its 40th anniversary with a Human Needs Hero gala that recognized decades of victories, clambering back from defeats, amazing organizing accomplishments, and more than a few heroes of the progressive movement.
CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for the latest on FY23 spending, efforts to pass a reconciliation package, a critical child nutrition law, and more.
Low pay and stressful work conditions are causing Head Start providers across the country to lose key staff, shut down programs, and turn students from low-income families away, a situation that is setting off alarm bells among early childhood education advocates.
As we celebrate Juneteenth this year, it is important to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery on the workplace and the labor market. The at-will employment doctrine, which allows employers in most states to discharge workers for any reason, and the subminimum wage for tipped workers are both rooted in the employer backlash to Emancipation. These laws continue to disadvantage workers—Black and Latinx workers in particular.
The late U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) used to say that affordable access to the internet is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. And we saw this during the pandemic, when whether or not students could get online often meant the difference between learning and being denied an education at a time when schools were shuttered and classrooms went virtual. Now the federal government is addressing this inequity – and advocacy groups and service-providers across the country are jumping in to help.
The children are hurting edition. We’ve known for some time that students’ math and reading skills have suffered during the pandemic. This is mostly due to the shift to virtual learning that begun in March 2020. Students – particularly those from families with low incomes, disproportionately Black, brown and Indigenous students – did not achieve as well when they were out of the classroom. The pandemic has led to declines in school enrollment around the nation, which in turn is forcing budget cuts in many school districts – not a good way to repair the damage inflicted on students. But we now are learning more about other ways children are hurting – with more threats on the horizon.
Staring into her son’s eyes in front of the U.S. Capitol, Jacklyn from Niagara Falls, New York explained why including support for child care in the reconciliation package is crucial for her family’s success. Jacklyn lives in a rural community where child care is highly inaccessible. The options are limited – there are more children who need spots than spots available in the child care programs. “Even if we could get a spot off the waitlists, there is no way we could afford it with its very high costs,” she said.
My son JJ has cerebral palsy. He’s unable to speak or use his arms and legs. But he’s remarkable. He communicates by using his nose to type on a keyboard attached to his wheelchair. His mind is sharp, and he’s passionate about advocating for people with disabilities and their families. We live in Florida. We’ve been on the waiting list for in-home health care assistance since JJ was 3 years old. He’s now 18.
The our-nation-is-not-well edition. Omicron subvariants continue to surge throughout the country. The average number of new daily cases now exceeds 100,000 – a number we have not seen since February. Things could get worse. In California, two highly contagious subvariants that recently swept through South Africa have been detected. The newly discovered BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are more transmissible than the nation’s current dominant subvariants – BA.2 and BA.2.12.1.
My 8-month-old daughter, Jayde, was born with a growth restriction. She weighs just 13 pounds — no more than a 3-month-old. She sees a pediatric nutritionist and eats a specialized formula that provides 30 calories per ounce in hopes of getting her on the elusive growth curve. Jayde was crawling steadily towards this goal — until all of a sudden, we couldn’t find her formula anywhere. We spent hours scouring the internet, social media, and stores. As the national shortage took hold, none could be found.
Eva Long’s mother was overseas when she got a call saying her daughter had committed suicide while away at college. “I was just in shock. I said, ‘This can’t be real. This can’t be true,'” Long said. “That cry of a mother when they’ve lost their child is a pretty wicked one, and I couldn’t stop it.”
The Biden Administration this week released a detailed report laying out not just how the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) helped the country recover from the coronavirus pandemic and the pandemic-related recession, but also took historic steps to promote racial and income equity.