Mexico deported 129 Haitian migrants to the capital Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, the second such flight [Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters]
Washington, October 10 (RHC)-- Migration advocates in the United States are urging an international human rights commission to demand the Biden administration end the use of Title 42, a public health directive that allows the U.S. to immediately expel most migrants who arrive at its borders.
The Lowenstein Project at Yale Law School submitted an emergency request (PDF) to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an arm of the Organisation of American States tasked with upholding human rights in the Americas.
The request for “precautionary measures” was filed on behalf of 31 asylum seekers who had been expelled from the United States, or have not tried to enter the country, as a result of Title 42, a policy that the petitioners argue exposes asylum seekers to “serious and urgent threats”.
The rights groups named in the petition, which include Haitian Bridge Alliance, Human Rights First, and Al Otro Lado, are calling for the migrants to be allowed to claim asylum in the US – and for the policy to be rescinded.
“What we’re urging the Commission to do is to ask the United States government to stop this process, to stop barring the entry of these individuals and others,” James Cavallaro, a former president of the IACHR and a petitioner, told reporters on Thursday.
Cavallaro added that Title 42, under which most migrants are unable to file asylum claims in the US, is exposing people to “severe and urgent risks to their lives, to their wellbeing [and] to their physical integrity.”
According to the IACHR website, “a precautionary measure is a protection mechanism” through which the commission “requests a State to protect one or more persons who are in a serious and urgent situation from suffering irreparable harm.”
The petition adds further pressure on the administration of Joe Biden, who has struggled to deal with a surge in the number of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border after fleeing poverty, violence and climate change-fuelled disasters in their home countries.
Title 42 was first invoked in March 2020 by former President Donald Trump, whose administration pursued harsh, anti-immigration policies, to allow US immigration officers to quickly deport asylum seekers who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The measure cites the need to protect the country from the further spread of COVID-19, but rights groups said it is a guise to keep asylum seekers out – and they have repeatedly called on the Biden administration to revoke it. Yet while Biden exempted children travelling alone from Title 42 removals, he has kept the policy in place.
The IACHR petition nevertheless came amid various attempts to end the use of Title 42.
