Urges Administration to Uphold Human Rights and Repeal Harmful Immigration Policies

In response to President Biden’s executive order to implement a broad asylum ban, including a cap on how many people can seek asylum in the US, at the US-Mexico border, Hindus for Human Rights made the following statement:  

We condemn President Biden’s new asylum ban, which punishes immigrants fleeing desperate circumstances for a better life in the United States. This new policy plays into white supremacist tropes about an invasion of brown and black immigrants at the US-Mexico border. 

This executive order, which draws on the same legal argument as former President Trump’s infamous Muslim ban, does nothing for immigrants, border communities, or the American immigration system. Instead it puts asylum seekers in harm's way as they wait for entry in Mexico, where migrants regularly face kidnapping, violence, and death. Some asylum seekers are forced to return to the harrowing conditions they faced in their home countries. Many asylum seekers who have been forced away under both the current and previous Administrations have died when they returned home.

If President Biden is serious about putting human rights at the center of his agenda, he will reverse course. This asylum ban is a violation of international human rights and refugee law. As Hindus, we call on this Administration to join us in seeing the divine in every individual, regardless of their skin color. 

Atithi Devo Bhava. Be one for whom guest is god.

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