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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 2022
CONTACT:
Elyssa Pachico | +1 503 347 23 29 | press@alianzaamericas.org
Myneilles Negron | +1 703 585 6727 | mynellies@communicationsshop.us
WASHINGTON – According to media reports including the AP and the Wall Street Journal, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will likely terminate its Title 42 policy by May 23. Alianza Americas and its digital organizing powerhouse Presente.org welcome this decision and urge the Biden administration to restore a humane and just asylum process at the border.
“Health experts have long pointed out that Title 42 has zero grounding in protecting public health. This policy was designed to keep Black and Brown people from petitioning for asylum at the border. Biden should have ended it his first day in office,” said Oscar Chacón, executive director for Alianza Americas. “The U.S. government needs to take steps now to rapidly build up its capacity to fairly and humanely process asylum applications at its southern border. That means working closely with civil society humanitarian organizations at the border who stand ready to help, should the Department of Homeland Security engage them.”
As Alianza Americas and Presente.org have previously noted, in order to revoke Title 42 in an orderly and humane way, the Biden administration must now fast-track investing in personnel and physical infrastructure at the border. This means establishing processing centers with trained asylum managers and social workers rather than uniformed law enforcement to increase the U.S. government’s capacity to process asylum seekers fairly. It also means collaborating with humanitarian and border aid groups, to ensure that asylum seekers — many of whom have spent years in Mexico, facing kidnapping, rape, and torture — approach border entry points for prompt processing in a safe and organized way.
Collaborating with humanitarian organizations is critical to ensure that asylum seekers are released into U.S. shelters prepared to receive them and are placed with families or other support networks within the U.S. as they await their immigration court dates.
“DHS and other government agencies need to take action now to prepare to receive asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border in an orderly manner because the window for doing so is rapidly closing,” said Helena Olea, associate director of Alianza Americas. “Asylum seekers should be able to apply for protection in a way that is fair and straightforward, not arbitrary and chaotic.”
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Alianza Americas is the only transnational organization rooted in Latino immigrant communities in the United States focused on improving the quality of life of all people in the U.S.-Mexico-Central America migration corridor. As a network of Latino and Caribbean immigrants, Alianza Americas is working for change in the U.S. while also promoting a more stable, healthy, democratic and safer conditions in the countries of origin of their members.
Presente.org is Alianza Americas’ digital organizing powerhouse. As the nation’s largest online Latinx organizing group — and the nation’s premier Latinx digital organizing hub — Presente.org advances social justice with technology, media, and culture.
