Women’s Refugee Commission Calls for Justice, Respect, and Dignity for Black Migrants

Washington, D.C. — Today, as groups around the country mobilized for a National Day of Action in Support of Black Migrants, and a day after the Biden administration announced that it would reopen the U.S.-Mexico border to vaccinated travelers but not to those seeking asylum, Katharina Obser, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission, issued the following statement:

“The Women’s Refugee Commission joins our many partners in calling for justice, respect, and dignity for the countless Haitian and other Black migrants who—despite exercising their legally protected right to seek asylum at the U.S. border—are again and again expelled and returned to danger and harm.

“It is unconscionable that the Biden administration continues to embrace a racist and xenophobic Trump-era policy weaponizing an obscure public health law and to renege on the fundamental obligation to ensure access to safety for the persecuted.

“The decisions to expel, to deny access to asylum, and to betray our obligations under U.S. and international law are a choice, one that the administration is making day after day. It doesn’t have to be this way. We call on the Biden administration to reverse course on these cruel policies, to make good on its campaign promises to restore fairness in our asylum system, and to finally begin to welcome with dignity.”

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