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New Immigration Policy Will Endanger the Lives of Refugee Women and Children

New York, NY

The Bush Administration’s expansion of a program to deport immigrants seeking to enter the United States at the Canadian and Mexican borders without providing the chance to present their case to an immigration judge will endanger the lives of refugee women and children fleeing persecution. The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children contends that overworked border patrol agents would not have sufficient training or expertise to determine whether a woman or child fleeing persecution has a legitimate asylum claim. The result could be returning at-risk women and children to a life-threatening situation.

“This new policy takes a bad situation and makes it worse,” says Wendy Young, director of external relations, Women’s Commission. “It will be extremely difficult for refugee children and women who are escaping serious abuse, torture and trauma to voice their asylum claims. Highly specialized skills are needed to interview women and children asylum seekers and it defies logic that border officials can gain these skills in a few days of training.”

While it’s unclear to date whether children are governed by the new policy, children are likely to be adversely affected because border patrol agents will be responsible for determining whether they are children or adults. “Again, it’s difficult to believe that the border patrol agents will receive sufficient training to make these complicated age determinations, especially since they should include the evaluation of evidence typically unavailable at the border,” says Young. “The result would be children who had come to the United States to escape abuse being deported back to precarious circumstances without any review of their case because they are inaccurately categorized as adults.”

Young adds, “Border patrols are law enforcement agents bent on prosecution and removal. Requiring them to act as judges to interpret law clearly undermines the United States' asylum system designed to protect basic human rights.”

“There’s no question that the Department of Homeland Security’s primary mandate of preventing terrorism is a critical national priority, but one very different from our commitment to protecting refugees, which defines us as a nation and makes us unique,” says Young.