UN rights chief says new US border enforcement poses risk to fundamental human rights

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) – The UN human rights chief warned Wednesday that the US administration's new border enforcement measures risk undermining the basic foundations of international human rights and refugee law.

"The right to seek asylum is a human right, no matter a person's origin, immigration status, nor how they arrived at an international border," High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement.

Turk said the announced changes include increased use of expedited removals and expansion of Title 42 public health order to permit the fast-track expulsion to Mexico of some 30,000 Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, and Nicaraguans each month.

"These measures appear to be at variance with the prohibition of collective expulsion and the principle of nonrefoulement," the UN human rights chief said.

Title 42 has been used by US immigration officials some 2.5 million times at the southern border to expel people to Mexico or their home country without an individual assessment of all their protection needs accompanied by due process and procedural safeguards.

Still, a "humanitarian parole" program, previously extended to Venezuelans, would be expanded to include Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua nationals.

The program would allow some 30,000 individuals a month from these four countries to come to the US for two years with strict conditions for eligibility.

- Human rights of all refugees, migrants must be protected, Turk urges

"While I welcome measures to create and expand safe and regular pathways, such initiatives should not come at the expense of fundamental human rights, including the right to seek asylum and the right to an individual assessment of protection needs," said Turk.

"Limited access to humanitarian parole for some cannot be a replacement for upholding the rights of all to seek the protection of their human rights," he said, reinforcing the UN Refugee Agency's concerns.

The UN rights chief was also concerned that those most in need of asylum and those in vulnerable situations are unlikely to meet the restrictive requirements to be granted humanitarian parole, including having a financial sponsor in the US.

Turk reiterated his call for the human rights of all refugees and migrants to be respected and protected at international borders.

"Rather than vilifying them and stripping them of long-recognized rights, we should be seeking to govern migration humanely and safely with full respect for the human rights of every individual," he said.