Migrants and asylum seekers from Central America have been marching towards the US for protection and shelter. But US government has deployed around 6000 soldiers to prevent them from entering into the US. These migrant and asylum seekers convoys have been dubbed as “a foreign invasion” by the incumbent US President that needs to be confronted by the US army. President Trump hard-headedly argued that “immigration is a very, very big and very dangerous, a really dangerous topic” that prompted the US army officials of firing tear gas shells at migrants’ convoys. It is nothing but the portrayal of an invasion by the Central American migrants and asylum seekers into the US. Such a US posturing on international migration is a manifestation of the US tradition of hypocrisy and its deep-seated aversion towards the migrants that violates global human Rights protection standards (GHRPS). Thus, the across-the-board new migration strategy of the US is based on the idea of ultra-restrictionism that deprives the immigrants from public benefits, and recently President Trump has entirely abolished the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme along with the abrogation of the temporary status protection programmes. These measures have adversely impacted the GHRPS required for the 2 million regular migrants in the US which spawned the emergence of a well-founded fear of persecution, far-right nationalism, and socio-cultural schism.
New Migration Strategy
The US restrictive measures have attracted international media attention and the US is hell-bent to send a message to the international community that it would not be privy to the non-binding standard for a safe, orderly and regular migration known as the UN Global Compact on Migration (GCM) arrangement scheduled to be agreed in December 2018 and US is alone capable to take its decisions on immigration issues under America First Policy (AFP).Therefore, the GHRPS for migrants and asylum seekers are apparently immaterial in the US immigration policy objectives. Trump administration under AFP discourse envisions restrictionism, deterrence, and pre-emption against GHRPS while denying public benefits to immigrants at par US citizens. Unfortunately, strong and inclusive migration control strategy has been devised and is being implemented to restrict the rights of those migrants and immigrants who are already there in the US. For example; Trump administration has been attempting to temper the 2020 US census that is bound to influence the political scene for the advantage of Republicans in the years ahead.
However, ex-President Barack Obama also resorted to the deployment of US armed forces on the US-Mexico international border to curb migration that resulted in some cases of family-separations but at a low rate if it is measured against the present Trump administration. The point of distinction between the Obama and Trump administrations is that the former recognized the contribution of migrants to the US’s growth; however, this understanding has steadily acquired a negative narrative under the later administration. President Trump has been demanding $5 billion to construct a wall along the US-Mexico international border otherwise intimidating shutting down the US government. However, Trump administration apparently does not leave any stone unturned in case of violently pushing back migrants and asylum seekers. Trump administration has inaugurated its immigration policy with a Travel Ban from seven Muslim countries and now it has been stretched to Latin American countries against all norms of GHRPS and international law.
Global Human Rights Protection Standards
The incumbent US administration is more interested in denying migrants and asylum seekers the access to benefits under the US national laws and global human rights protection standards. The latest Trump’s proclamation is to contain the new arrivals from Mexico and its Southern nation-states which restrict the right to seek asylum in the US beyond the port of entry. Further, impugned presidential proclamation defers well-established US asylum legislation that contravenes due process of law, the rule of law and international treaty law recognized and sanctified under the Constitution of United States of America. However, this presidential proclamation or asylum ban has, for the time being, been stopped by the San Francisco Federal Court under a restraining order.
In spite of this, the Immigration and Nationality Act, 1965 states that any “alien or foreigner who is physically or personally present in the US or who comes in the US (whether or not at an officially designated port of entry, irrespective of such alien or foreigner’s status, may apply for asylum.” However, under Section 212 (f) the US President is empowered to enforce immigration restrictions by issuing a proclamation. Further, the US President may if feels that “the entry of any alien or foreigner or any class of foreigners or aliens into the US would be detrimental to the American interests suspend the entry of all foreigners or aliens or any class of aliens or foreigners as non immigrants or immigrants, or impose on the entry of foreigners or aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” Precisely, President Trump invoked this provision of law to clamp these insensitive and punitive restrictions. This presidential decree has aggravated the Trump’s AFP to new levels of castigation. Groups and individuals seeking asylum and entering the US while avoiding official ports of entry were slapped with criminal cases that got them separated from their families. Such irregular entries were criminalized by the US border authorities in violation of “the right not to be penalized for irregularly entering into the territory of High Contracting State” under Article 31 of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (UNCSR) with its 1967 Additional Protocol that has been acceded to by the US.
Having hit with such transgressions, the criminal charges leveled against asylum seekers did not affect their asylum claims, and they were duly entitled to have their asylum claims heard. However, this scenario is no more there as new reports indicate that a single-digit number of asylum applications are disposed of daily at the designated entry ports. Therefore, such a situation has led to inordinate delays in processing the applications of asylum seekers at the border that is a violation of Section 1 of Amendment XIV of the Constitution of United States of America that codifies the core values of the people of the USA. But many persons have been denied access and abducted, raped and thrashed to the hilt. However, Article 33 (1) of the UNCSR contains the principle of non-refoulement stemming from the customary international law that works as “a safety valve” which obligates the nation-states to protect a refugee, migrants, stateless and asylum seekers who is fleeing from persecution, risk or danger to life in his or her country of origin or homeland. Few scholars contest the applicability of the principle of non-refoulement extra-territorially; however, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has already recognized the extra-territorial application of the non-refoulement principle, and the denial of entry into the US is a violation of the UNCSR.
Moreover, there is another principle of international law where under collective or mass expulsion of the refugees, migrants or asylum seekers is prohibited and obligates the nation-states to examine objectively and cumulatively every expulsion action of each individual and group of persons. The “hot return” policy of the US clearly violates this obligation under GHRPS. Thus, this practice primarily rescinds the right of the huge majority of migrants and asylum seekers to seek for asylum. Therefore, it also circumvents the objects and purposes of the UNCSR.
The Hot Return Policy
The hot return policy stems from the US Department of Justice regulation of 1953 that entails the “100 Air Mile Zone” rule; however, that negates the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution under which the right and protection against arbitrary and random searches have been provided within this zone. But Border Patrol officials have been empowered to operate the immigration checkpoints in this vast zone with extra-constitutional powers. Under the “zero tolerance policy” Department of Homeland Security wields enormous powers and conducts speedy ejections of undocumented migrants within this area. The fundamental rights and freedoms such as the right to counsel or the right to a hearing before a judicial immigration authority and the right against expulsions are not available in the situation of “hot returns.” The new regulation has precisely been founded upon this mechanism and whosoever arrives at the designated checkpoints will be pushed back devoid of any due process of law. Anti-migration-driven steps like the family separation, ankle-monitors for asylum seekers and detention of asylum seekers during the process of determination of their asylum claims. Therefore, it has become a double-edged weapon as when asylum seekers try to apply at authoritative ports of entry they are prevented from doing so and when some migrants and asylum seekers do not follow the law and try to manage surreptitiously asylum benefits they are also prevented from claiming asylum within the US. In fact, the impugned policy violates the UNCSR, customary international law and the provisions of general international law. Therefore, civil society institutions like the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center and American Civil Liberties Union filed cases in the US courts against such illegal actions of the Trump administration.
The Rights of Migrants and Asylum Seekers
There is a plan to have secret measures to restrict the rights of migrants and asylum seekers in the US against all protection standards of the so-called civilized world. The rights of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers are in active violation in the US who espouses the cause of human rights, the rule of law, democracy and diversity worldwide. For example; in the Matter of A-R-C-G- et al. decided on August 26, 2014 at the US Department of Justice by the Executive Office for Immigration Review where the Board of Immigration observed that “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave or run away from their relationship” which can constitute a cognizable “membership of particular social group” that establishes the basis of the right to seek asylum or withholding of removal under Sections 208(a) and 241(b)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 1965 and which is also a prerequisite for meeting the criterion of refugee definition under Article 1 of the UNCSR. However, law officers under the Trump administration adamant to subvert the well-established legal standards that provide respite and reprieve in the cases of domestic violence.
There is a perennial cycle of legal measures that are bound to belittle existing human rights protection standards like latest Trump administration’s endeavour to reverse the Flores v. Reno popularly known as Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA) in September 2018. The reversal of FSA will be the most inhuman act of the present US administration as separating and snatching children from their parents cannot be justified under any circumstance whatsoever. FSA determines the limits on the duration and conditions under which children could be incarcerated in immigration detention, and it also regulatesthe detention, treatment, and release of detained minors by the immigration authorities. However, Trump Administration seeks to terminate the FSA’s legal defences for children, including the provision that children must be shifted to a non-secure, licensed facility within three to five days of detention, which has been construed to allow for an extension of up to 20 days in times of “emergency” or “influx.” The proposed regulations include some policies which, if implemented, would allow the government to incarcerate more families for even longer periods. Primarily, FSA’s goal was to release families and minor children from immigration custody quickly. Therefore, if FSA is reversed now, it would violate GHRPS and due process of law.
Way Forward
The US is the first country in the world that has been recognized as a country of migrants, enriched by the migrants and celebrates multiculturalism as an inalienable part of its existence since time immemorial. However, US policies based on the doctrine of American interests worldwide has done a massive disservice to the lives of the people worldwide. The US supports and protects many national governments who serve its interests, US exploits and expropriates the natural resources of many countries and its prescriptive approach in formulating economic policies, forced regime change, subjugation of international organizations and selective discharge of international obligations have also contributed in displacing people from their roots. Therefore, it has to share the responsibility of hosting migrants and asylum seekers, particularly from its vicinity. In fact, many anti-migrants measures violate US municipal law, the US’s international treaty obligations as well as general international law. The US has to abdicate its restrictionism based on hate, threats, and xenophobia in consonance with its historical traditions of liberal democracy, diversity, and multiculturalism.
In this context, all anti-migrants restrictions and sanctions must be withdrawn while respecting GHRPS and international law obligations.As pictures circulate worldwide of US firing of tear gas enveloping migrants, asylum seekers and their children on US-Mexican border and terrified faces of children who are being snatched from their parents by the US Border Patrol agents, a UN Global Compact on Orderly and Safe Migration is likely to win near-universal approval at the inter-governmental conference scheduled to be held in Marrakesh, Moroccoon December 10-11, 2018 expected to be the final step before the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is formally adopted by the UN General Assembly. It has been a long-drawn journey to achieve such an ambitious plan for regulating and governing international migration by the international community. However, it would not be a legally binding treaty even then, unfortunately, US has already shunned this global initiative against the mandate of its own constitution.
The Constitution of the United States of America is a sacred covenant achieved by an immeasurable amount of human investment that has established an equal society in America. But, unfortunately, these restrictions on the rights of migrants and asylum seekers have weakened the US constitutional guarantees and liberties under the current administration. The emergence of the far-right political discourse that is being well-sponsored and patronized under the Trump administration must be countered by strengthening the liberal democratic political discourse, and same must also be reflected in the institutional governance frameworks of the United States of America.
