Amnesty International USA Comments on Interim Final Rule Regarding Asylum Eligibility
Amnesty International USA submitted the following comments in response to the July 2019 interim final rule (EOIR Docket ID No. 19-0504) barring eligibility for asylum for virtually all asylum-seekers who have crossed through another country in transit to the United States. We are profoundly concerned about how this rule eviscerates the right to seek asylum in the United States and will result in countless wrongful returns of individuals to places where they fear grave harm.
Our opposition to the third-country transit rule here is rooted in our expertise in the international human rights standards governing asylum law as well as our extensive research on access to asylum throughout the region – including our documentation of the inadequacies of Mexico’s asylum system and the grave dangers faced by asylum-seekers in their countries of origin and en route to the United States.
This interim final rule starkly violates our obligations towards asylum-seekers, rests on the fiction that adequate protections are available in common countries of transit and endangers particularly vulnerable groups of asylum-seekers. For all these reasons, Amnesty International urges the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to rescind this ill-advised and patently illegal rule and instead focus their ample resources on upholding the United States’ domestic and international legal obligations towards asylum-seekers.
For more information, please contact Charanya Krishnaswami, Amnesty International USA’s Americas Advocacy Director, at [email protected]