juicy, 1 month ago

Biden has resumed deportation flights to Haiti despite protests from the UN Refugee Agency and others:

Blaine Bookey, legal director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, said the deportations were “a disgrace”.

“They protect no one. They ‘deter’ no one. They violate our laws and treaty obligations, legal guidance from the UN Refugee Agency, and basic principles of humanity. They must end,” Bookey said in a statement on Friday.

The Biden administration is choosing to hold asylum seekers in detention while their case goes through the system instead of just processing them and releasing them with a court date as was the standard practice before Trump. That is why the number of detainees is ballooning:

Biden has also started sending more migrants, most of whom have no criminal record, to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. [Vox]

This policy has been protested by Human Rights Watch, Amensty International, and a slew of other organizations:

Rights Groups Oppose President Biden’s Expansion of ICE Detention:

April 25, 2024

Dear President Biden:

We write to express outrage over your administration’s expansion of the cruel and unnecessary immigration detention system. Last month, you signed a spending bill that provides historically high funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention - $3.4 billion in taxpayers’ money. Our organizations work with and advocate on behalf of people who have experienced immigration detention. They carry life long scars from the mistreatment and dehumanization they endured because of the United States’ reliance on detention, mostly through private prisons and county jails. Your administration is further entrenching this reliance, marking an utter betrayal of your campaign https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1613/end-profit-detention-centers/.

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In an abrupt change of course, over the last two years, ICE has instead increased the number of people in custody. Most of the facilities on ICE’s internal closure list remain open, despite numerous reports from advocates and service providers further documenting the ineffectiveness of detention and the need for a different approach. As the political winds shifted, so did your funding requests to Congress. In October 2023, you https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2023/10/20/letter-regarding-critical-national-security-funding-needs-for-fy-2024/, and your https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-secures-our-border-combats-fentanyl-trafficking-and-calls-on-congress-to-enact-critical-immigration-reform/sought funding for 34,000 beds instead of the 25,000 sought in the two previous cycles. The result is unsurprising: the FY2024 spending bill you signed provides ICE $3.4 billion to jail an average of 41,500 immigrants per day, historically high funding surpassing all four years of the Trump administration.

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Detention does not provide an efficient or ethical means of border processing, and it certainly does not indicate to migrants that they are welcome in the United States. It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane and misguided – as even the most punitive forms of detention https://www.americanprogress.org/article/family-separation-detention-deter-immigration/ not to deter people from seeking safety or a better life.

Sincerely,

18 Million Rising
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Amnesty International USA
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Center for Immigration Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law
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Human Rights Watch
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Mijente
Muslim Advocates
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Refugees International
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Showing Up for Racial Justice
Sikh Coalition
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Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice
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