18 APR 2023

Sen. Bob Menendez’s Plan on Asylum is a Potential Game-Changer

Kerri Talbot: “The Biden Administration would be wise to use the plan as a blueprint”

Washington, DC - Today, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) published a plan titled, “Securing our Borders by Managing Migration and Refugees in the Americas.” The Senator urges a four-pillar strategy to manage and mitigate the flow of refugees and migrants from throughout the Americas:

  • Create new legal pathways and expand existing pathways to reduce pressure at the southwestern border;

  • Increase resources at the border to process asylum seekers and remove people without legal claims to stay in the U.S.;

  • Expand humanitarian assistance and develop financing to better integrate migrants and refugees in countries across the Americas; and

  • Elevate efforts to counter transnational criminal organizations involved in human trafficking and smuggling.

The following is a statement by Kerri Talbot, Deputy Director of the Immigration Hub, in response to the senator’s plan:

Senator Menendez is a leading thinker and policy maker on migration, refugees and foreign policy. His thoughtful, balanced and multilayered plan is a potential game-changer. The Biden Administration would be wise to use it as a blueprint.

To deal with the challenge, we have to understand it. As the paper details, the increase in migration and refugee movements from across the Americas is caused by “push factors” – political repression in totalitarian states such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua; the collapse of failing states such as Haiti; the mismanagement of the pandemic response as a region of 8% of the world’s population suffered 26% of the world’s COVID deaths – and not just “pull factors” such as the the draw of jobs, family and safety that the United States.

In the plan, push factors are addressed with making migration a foreign policy priority in the hemisphere; providing support for countries offering safe haven throughout the hemisphere; cracking down on traffickers; and making increased public and private investments in root cause alleviation. Pull factors are addressed by expanding legal channels for refugees, for those in need of humanitarian admission and for needed workers; and by reforming and resourcing an asylum processing system at the border and throughout the country with a surge of both adjudicators and legal representation.

Finally, the plan calls for resourcing communities throughout America that welcome asylum seekers and the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to stabilize and protect those living and working in America who are unable to safely return to repressive and violent home countries.

The Menendez plan combines the right elements to better manage refugee and migrant flows from throughout the Americas: it preserves asylum and refugee protection while ensuring the system has integrity; it provides safe haven to those unable to return to their countries; it expands legal channels to reduce border pressures; and it makes sure that, over time, forced migration is mitigated and managed. Democrats would be wise to rally around this plan, and Republicans interested in forging solutions rather than in playing politics would be wise to engage in serious negotiations to approve the needed resources and reforms to fully implement this plan.

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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.