To the Biden Administration: Do Not Place More Asylum Seekers Behind Bars as Title 42 Lifts

Immigration Counseling Service (ICS) has joined 233 organizations to call on the Biden Administration to live up to its promise of creating a more humane immigration system by ensuring asylum seekers and other migrants are not placed behind bars in immigration detention as Title 42 is lifted.We welcome the overdue end of the unlawful and cruel Title 42 expulsion policy. As Title 42 ends, the government can heed lessons from other nations; the international community has for years managed to humanely and fairly receive people forced to flee their homes due to crises and conflict. Many nations have responded to this challenge with community-based services and support programs—not by expanding the use of detention. The United States must show moral leadership and join these nations, rather than those that seek to punish and stigmatize the most vulnerable among us through detention and surveillance.Mass detention of immigrants and asylum seekers places the United States further at odds with international norms and treaty obligations. Detention places people in conditions known to cause mental and physical harm and endanger their lives. Detention is not a deterrent to migrants who have no choice but to flee dangerous or violent conditions in search of a better life. It is also unnecessary in ensuring future appearance, as non-detained asylum seekers and immigrants overwhelmingly appear for their court hearings.ICE currently detains approximately 25,500 people per day in county jails, for-profit prisons, and federal facilities across the country, costing taxpayers $2.9 billion in 2023. The system is riddled with abusive conditions, including: medical abuse and negligent mental health care; lack of access to basic necessities; sexual and physical assault; frequent use of solitary confinement; and retaliation for reporting abuse. These abuses are endemic to the system; oversight mechanisms have proven ineffective in remedying them. Detention also separates immigrants from their children, spouses, and loved ones, inflicting long-lasting trauma in immigrant communities.The American public overwhelmingly believes that people seeking safety in the United States should be able to fairly access asylum. The cruelty and harms of detention should have no part in that. Whether they are green card holders, refugees, asylees, or asylum seekers, immigrants are integral and vibrant members of our community. Detention is not an effective or humane response to people seeking safety at the border and it must not be expanded.We stand in solidarity with immigrant communities and asylum seekers, and urge the Biden Administration to abandon policies that undermine their dignity, livelihoods, and human rights. The Administration can instead utilize options such as parole, issue work permits, and invest resources in local communities providing shelter and support to migrants while they navigate their immigration cases.We call on the Biden Administration to make good on its commitments to never detain families, to end privatized immigration detention, and ensure that people seeking safety can pursue their cases while living in communities in the United States rather than being subjected to inhumane detention and surveillance.