Asylum-seekers in Texas are currently being stopped by border patrol before they can ask for asylum. This policy, as well as the separation of asylum-seeking kids from parents, is a VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. From @TexasMonthly: texasmonthly.com/politics/immig… (h/t @_karenjgonzalez)
I've had several people ask, so here's an in-depth thread about how this new policy violates international law: In 1948, after World War II, the US and several other countries signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. un.org/en/universal-d…
After WWII, we as a country (including my grandfather, a WWII vet) felt we could never allow human rights to be violated as they had been under Hitler; they were concerned about the thousands of refugees in Europe as well as the millions of people slaughtered in the Holocaust.
The 1948 agreement was the first international document to officially recognize that all people in the world have basic human rights; it seems simple now (or should, at least), but the idea that we are all “members of the human family" was pretty revolutionary at the time.
Three years later, the US signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defined refugees as people who would be persecuted or killed because of their “race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.” More here: unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/…
In 1980, the US Congress ratified the Federal Refugee Resettlement Program, which created a permanent path to provide a safe place for refugees of 'special humanitarian concern.' Overview: acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/t…
During all that time, we have HOTLY debated who is allowed to come to our country; for a nation made up primarily of immigrants to this land, we are fiercely protective of who can come after us. But in the time since we first ratified the 1948 agreement,
we've never seen asylum-seekers' rights being violated like they are now. Conservative presidents--most recently Reagan and both Bushes--presided over programs that allowed tens of thousands of refugees a year to be resettled in the US; asylum-seekers under Obama, who deported
more people than most of the preceding presidents, were still allowed due process. We have had a seriously dysfunctional immigration system for a long time, but what is happening now--separating asylum-seeking children from their parents and placing them in detention centers
or not allowing people to even SEEK ASYLUM on US soil--are egregious breaks from our country's long-standing humanitarian values, as well as our international agreements. It's illegal AND unethical.
Asylum-seekers are pre-refugees. EVERY REFUGEE starts off as an asylum-seeker--they go to the border and tell officials they will die if they go home. To be considered a refugee, they have to prove that's true; that's why they're detained while their case is processed.
Asylum-seekers are not criminals; they are doing NOTHING illegal. They are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing--approaching border officials and declaring that they need asylum. The reasons for the surge in asylum-seekers is because of what is happening in Central
America right now--the violence in Mexico and Honduras, the unrest in Nicaragua, etc. When he announced this new policy, Jeff Sessions said: "If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that."
This policy is designed to be a deterrent to parents bringing their children across the border (Source: washingtonpost.com/world/national…). But it is having ZERO impact on the number of asylum-seekers from Central America.
That number is on the rise: npr.org/2018/06/01/616… And MANY of the families having their children taken away are in fact asylum-seekers: usatoday.com/story/news/pol… And now they're being physically stopped from seeking asylum per the Texas Monthly article in the first tweet.
Why are parents still coming even if they will be separated from their children? Because home is more dangerous than here and separation is better than death. We rarely ask--what will happen to these families if they aren't allowed to come to the US?
For asylum-seekers, the answer is death or torturous violence. I'm close friends with a number of former asylum-seekers. Many of them are mothers. Not one of them ever considered NOT fleeing when violence or war threatened their kids--of course they kept their children alive.
The answer to these issues is complicated and includes economic development, access to good education, and safe communities for people in Central America. But the answer is NOT the cruel, illegal, inhumane policies at the US border right now. We cannot allow this to continue.
We need transparency in the detention process and an immediate return to international law, which means giving asylum-seekers the chance to prove that they are, in fact, refugees. They must be allowed to seek asylum.
Once they declare they are asylum-seekers, they need humane living conditions, good legal representation, and the chance to stay together with their families. To deny the, these basic rights violates our international agreements and should violate our own consciences.
And, one more plea: Please make sure you are getting your facts from reputable sources (which is why this Twitter thread is so long). These two articles are very useful for fact-checking the current debates: washingtonpost.com/news/fact-chec… and npr.org/2018/05/29/615….
If you know of good ways to help, people who are sharing clear information, or other articles pertinent to this conversation, please share or tag below. Thank you. #asylumseekers #refugees #BorderActionNow
This @CNN video shows two asylum-seeking moms who were separated from their kids: cnn.com/videos/politic…
This article from @Amnesty also lays out how these current policies violate international law: amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
A federal judge is about to rule on whether this policy violates US law: slate.com/news-and-polit… … The fact that this is also a violation of US law is being argued in a number of cases right now and I think we'll have much more info coming in the next few weeks.
