Washington, DC —The following is a statement from Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, reacting to ongoing negotiations in the Senate.
“Republicans, with apparent complicity of some Democrats, seem ready to make permanent new and damaging policy changes that would gut the asylum system and create more chaos and disorder at the southern border. No Democrat should advance key elements of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s wishlist.
The goal of any immigration changes should be to promote safety, orderliness, and legality and to reduce border chaos. Yet the policies apparently on the table to gut asylum and enact deterrence-only measures would add to chaos and disorder and cruelty, including efforts to restrict the promising legal parole programs that create safe, legal and orderly pathways for migration.
Democrats shouldn’t reward MAGA extremism, brinkmanship and this attempt to make permanent policy changes via a short-term funding vehicle. There are other options on the table that would actually help improve our system, such as resourcing our asylum system, getting more work permits so people can get to work quickly, and aiding border communities and other cities.
Any major policy changes should take place via regular order and involve a full-scale set of policy reforms and a full range of immigration policy experts, not just deterrence-only efforts being shoehorned into a short-term funding debate.
Given their control of the White House and Senate, Democrats should be fighting for changes that will actually improve our immigration and asylum system, not the grab bag of Trumpian policies being negotiated.”
Resources and Background:
- See here for border and asylum policy provisions that Congress can and should address in a supplemental package;
- Press Release with Audio Recording of Immigration Experts’ Press Call Held Today (LINK)
- AILA Issue Brief: “The Asylum Credible Fear Standard.”
