Biden’s Border Order, Daily Brief June 6, 2024

Political theater is pretty much unavoidable in the run-up to a US presidential election. But sometimes, it’s more than just attention-grabbing and descends to the level of an assault on human rights.

US President Joe Biden’s executive order on asylum this week definitely crosses that line.

Before we get into the specifics, let’s recall the fundamentals here, because I find that when people start talking about asylum these days, one core fact often gets overlooked.

It’s this: Everyone has the right to seek asylum in another country. This does not mean that anyone can just live wherever they want. No. It means you have the right to ask for asylum, and the authorities should consider your individual case and treat you humanely in the meantime. US law guarantees this right, and it’s also supported by international human rights and refugee law.

Biden’s executive order on Tuesday flew in the face of this fundamental right.

It enables border officials to rapidly remove (without so much as a hearing) people who arrive in the US at the southern border under certain conditions, specifically when the number of arrivals at the border exceeds a seven-day average of 2,500 people.

Why 2,500? Who knows? It’s a completely arbitrary number – pulled out of a hat.

Officials would then not reopen the border until the average number of daily arrivals drops below 1,500 people. Again, a number out of a hat.

This would shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers. The executive order is clearly unlawful under international human rights and refugee law.

It also risks exposing thousands of people to serious dangers.

We talked about the dangers a few weeks ago, when we looked at US border authorities “digitally metering” asylum claims using an app. Folks seeking asylum in the US who are forced to wait in Mexico are exposed to risks of rape, kidnapping, torture, and murder.

Biden’s new executive order will only add to the number of people facing these horrors.

This executive order is all about politics and the presidential election, to be sure. It’s political theater, in which candidates want to appear “tough” on border issues, regardless of the suffering their policies and policy proposals will cause.

But whenever you see a new policy described as “tough,” try this: replace the word “tough” with “cruel.” You’ll then likely better understand what’s going on at the human level.