Public Health As Pretext: The Evisceration of Asylum Law and Protections During a Pandemic
As the United States continues to grapple with the devastation and grief caused by COVID-19, asylum-seekers and refugees are forced to navigate the havoc of COVID-19 alongside aggressive attacks on asylum law by President Donald Trump’s administration. During this pandemic, the Administration proposed to: categorically deny asylum claims arising out of gender violence; allow immigration judges to deny asylum-seekers due process rights such as court hearings and testimony presentation; and impose an exorbitant fee of $975 on immigration-related appeals. The Administration also arbitrarily denied Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) to asylum-seekers; indefinitely closed the U.S. border, expelling more than 100,000 people (including over 2,000 unaccompanied children) along the U.S.-Mexico border; and created more barriers to obtaining asylum.
Recently, the Administration co-opted the “public health interest” narrative in order to bar asylum-seekers and refugees from entering the United States. On July 9, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) proposed to expand on the Health and Human Services (“HHS”) March 24, 2020 interim final rule that “suspend[ed] the introduction of persons from designated countries or places, if required, in the interest of public health.” Under this July 2020 rule, asylum-seekers and refugees “whose entry would pose a risk of further spreading infectious or highly contagious illnesses or diseases, because of declared public health emergencies in the United States or because of conditions in their country of origin or point of embarkation to the United States,” will be considered a “danger to the security of the United States.” Based on this criteria, DOJ and DHS will have the discretion and authority to effectively bar asylum-seekers and refugees from entering the country.
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