Elections Have Consequences, but Broken Promises To Refugees Shouldn’t Be One
Usually I write about international courts or human rights organizations, but today I wanted to share this thought about the new Trump administration. Whatever our views about the larger issue of immigration, I hope we can agree that the way Trump’s sweeping changes pull the rug out from under asylum seekers and refugees that have spent years jumping through hoops to enter the U.S. legally is cruel, uncalled for, and a violation of their rights to dignity and due process. Whatever rule changes Trump goes on to make in the future, this should not stand.
Elections have consequences, and a new president is certainly entitled to make changes. But shifting policies is no reason to violate people’s right to be treated with fairness, dignity, and due process of law.
The CBP One app was used by the Biden administration to improve order and safety at the U.S. Southern border. Before, asylum seekers usually had to cross the border illegally just to be able to present their asylum petition. The app allowed people to make appointments to be seen by the U.S. border patrol while remaining in Mexico. This reduced the incentive for making the dangerous, illegal trek through the desert or attempting to cross the Rio Grande.
Getting an appointment was difficult, though, with as many as 280,000 people competing for 1450 slots made available each day. Many people waited for months or years, trying with no success. Then there were people who finally succeeded at getting an appointment who were waiting for their big day to arrive.
Trump had everything cancelled the moment he took office, including long awaited asylum appointments set for the very afternoon following his inauguration. People who had managed to book appointments, usually after months or years of trying, received emails saying their appointments were no longer valid. The app was abruptly closed.
Another of Trump’s initial executive orders was to suspend the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program. This program allows refugees to resettle in the U.S., but only after undergoing extensive interviews and background checks. These include medical and security screenings, often over a period of at least a year and a half. Trump’s suspension included even people at the very end of this process, who already had plane tickets to travel to the United States. Some had even sold their possessions in preparation for moving. Now Trump’s suspension leaves them in limbo, their hopes dashed, with nothing to show for the gauntlet of interviews and exams they put themselves through at great difficulty and cost.
The admission of refugees and asylum seekers raises difficult questions. How much resources should the U.S. devote to helping foreigners looking to escape troubles in their home countries, as opposed to helping needy citizens of its own? What criteria should be used to make admissions decisions? Should family reunification and humanitarian considerations be primary, or would a points based system that looks at immigrants’ education and skills be better? People can certainly disagree, and an incoming president may set policies that differ from the previous administration.
If Trump’s team had decided to honor asylum appointments that had already been legally booked through the app but to reduce the number available going forward or not create any more, I could understand. Agree or not, that would be a new President’s prerogative. If Trump had decided to accept less people into the refugee settlement program in the future, or to slow the timeline for people at the early stages of the process, I would understand. Like it or not, those are the new President’s priorities.
But these overnight changes are cruel, unfair, and unjustified. These decisions have life-altering consequences for the refugees and asylum seekers affected, who deserve to at least be treated with dignity and fairness. No matter what Trump’s views on immigration, allowing in a few more people that had already reached advanced stages of the process under Biden would not cause the country to collapse.
Ecclesiastes 5:4 states, “It is better not to make a vow, than to make a vow and then not fulfill.” The United States is by and large not obligated to accept refugees, and it did not have to allow people to enter the resettlement program or use an app to make appointments at the border. But now that the U.S. government has, it is obligated to fulfil its commitments and keep its word.
Whatever our opinion about immigration or views on Trump, we all ought to reject these abrupt, heavy-handed executive orders. Let’s put aside our differences on the bigger questions surrounding immigration to demand that people who have built the last few years of their lives around government promises receive better.