Seeking Safety Shouldn't Be a Crime: America's War on Asylum

Maria watched her six-year-old daughter Lucy walk across the Gateway International Bridge alone, tears streaming down both their faces. After fleeing Honduras when gang members murdered several family members, Maria had spent months in a tent camp in Matamoros, Mexico, waiting for an asylum appointment that would never come. Faced with an impossible choice, she sent Lucy across the border as an unaccompanied minor, knowing it was her daughter's only chance at safety.

"Take care of each other, and God bless you!" Maria cried out as Lucy and her cousin Carlita, 11, walked hand in hand toward U.S. immigration officers. Other families gathered at the bridge to comfort Maria as she watched her child disappear into a system that might never reunite them.

Meanwhile, Ridel Jimenez logged into the CBP One app for the 180th consecutive day from Mexico City, where he'd been waiting six months with his wife and infant daughter after fleeing Cuba. When Trump took office, a message appeared: "All appointments have been cancelled." Just like that, 30,000 people who had legal appointments to seek asylum were told they no longer mattered.

This is America in 2025: where seeking safety from violence is treated as a crime, where families are forced to choose between death and separation, and where the fundamental human right to asylum has been suspended with the stroke of a pen.

The Law Is Crystal Clear: Seeking Asylum Is a Human Right

Let's be absolutely clear about what international law says, because the United States is violating it every single day:

• The 1951 Refugee Convention, which America signed through the 1967 Protocol, establishes the principle of non-refoulement: no country can return refugees to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened
• Article 31 of the Convention explicitly states that countries cannot impose penalties on refugees who enter illegally if they present themselves without delay
• The Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. ratified, prohibits returning people to countries where they face torture
• The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights forbids refoulement and requires due process
• These principles are considered customary international law, binding even on countries that haven't signed the treaties

The United States didn't just sign these agreements. We helped write them. After witnessing the Holocaust and the refusal of countries to accept Jewish refugees, America led the effort to ensure "never again" meant something. Now we're the ones slamming the door.

Trump's Asylum Ban: Illegal from Day One

On January 20, 2025, Trump signed Proclamation 10888, indefinitely suspending the right to seek asylum at the southern border. He claimed America faced an "invasion" and that he had the power to create his own immigration system.

Federal Judge Randolph Moss didn't buy it. In a 128-page ruling, he wrote that "The President cannot adopt an alternative immigration system, which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted." The judge warned that Trump's actions threatened to create a "presidentially decreed, alternative immigration regime" that violated both U.S. and international law.

Lee Gelernt of the ACLU called it "unprecedented" and "a flat-out ban on all asylum" that goes "way beyond anything that even President Trump has tried in the past."

By July 2025, federal courts had blocked the ban, but the damage was done. Thousands remained stranded in Mexico, many in areas controlled by the same cartels they were fleeing.

Biden's Complicity: How Democrats Helped Destroy Asylum

Trump didn't destroy asylum alone. Biden laid the groundwork with policies that were just as cruel, if slightly more sophisticated.

In June 2024, Biden issued an executive order suspending asylum when border encounters exceeded 2,500 per day. By September, he tightened it further, requiring 28 consecutive days below 1,500 encounters before asylum would resume. That threshold? It hasn't been met in years.

Biden's "Circumvention of Lawful Pathways" rule, enacted in May 2023, made most people ineligible for asylum unless they used the CBP One app or were denied asylum in a third country first. It effectively outsourced U.S. asylum obligations to Mexico, forcing people to wait in danger.

The International Rescue Committee called Biden's policies a violation of "American laws and values" that "rob many asylum seekers of a fair chance to present their case."

CBP One: The App That Turned Human Rights Into a Lottery

Imagine your family's safety depending on winning a digital lottery every morning at 11 a.m. That's what CBP One became for asylum seekers.

Ana, fleeing violence in Michoacan, Mexico, tried for over a year to get an appointment. Every morning, she'd log in with thousands of others, hoping her family's number would come up. It never did. Her daughter would cry at night, asking when they could go home. Ana had no answer.

Amnesty International called CBP One "a lottery system based on chance" that violated international law. The app used facial recognition and GPS tracking, raising surveillance concerns. It turned the legal right to asylum into a privilege for those with smartphones, internet access, and luck.

When Trump cancelled all appointments on January 20, 2025, people who'd waited months or years lost everything in an instant. One Venezuelan man in Matamoros held up his phone showing the cancellation message. He'd waited eight months. His appointment was for the next day.

The Human Cost: Families Fleeing for Their Lives

Who are these "invaders" Trump warns about? Let me tell you who they really are.

Benjamín, from El Salvador, was targeted by gangs for refusing recruitment. When he resisted, they beat him so badly he couldn't leave bed for three days. "If I went back to El Salvador, I would not survive," he told researchers. "I think it would be worse and they would finish me."

Jimena, 21, from Honduras, was raped by gang members who then murdered her cousin as a warning. She fled with her husband while pregnant, giving birth at the border after months of running. "If I step on Honduran soil, they will kill us," she said. "And they will not care that I have a child."

Sergio, Romina, and their eight-year-old son Antonio fled Honduras after men with machetes attacked them, missing the boy by centimeters. Romina still struggles with trauma: "I am so anguished that I cannot concentrate on anything. Twenty minutes later I faint. My head hurts."

These families didn't leave their homes lightly. They left because staying meant certain death. As one Honduran father explained: "I never thought I would have to leave my country. Now, I know if I went back, I wouldn't last very long alive."

Trapped in Mexico: From One Danger to Another

When America closes its doors, asylum seekers don't disappear. They're trapped in Mexican border cities that are among the most dangerous places on Earth.

In 2024 alone, Doctors Without Borders treated over 700 survivors of sexual violence in Mexico. Migrants face kidnapping, extortion, and murder from the same cartels they fled. An IRC assessment found that 26% of displaced people in Mexico had been kidnapped at least once, many multiple times.

Shelters overflow. Families sleep in tents or on streets. Children are recruited by gangs. Women are trafficked. And they wait, sometimes for years, for an asylum system that no longer exists.

One asylum seeker in Tijuana explained the impossible situation: "We're in exactly the same conditions that people are fleeing from, everything from cartels and violence to gang presence."

International Law vs. American Exceptionalism

The United Nations has been clear: U.S. asylum policies violate international law.

The principle of non-refoulement is absolute. You cannot send people back to danger. Period. It doesn't matter how they entered. It doesn't matter if you call them "invaders." It doesn't matter if you claim national security. The prohibition against refoulement is considered jus cogens, a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted.

UNHCR has warned that U.S. policies cause "chain refoulement," where people are pushed from country to country until they're forced back to the very dangers they fled. This isn't just illegal. It's participating in their murder.

The Myth of Border Security Through Cruelty

Politicians claim that being cruel to asylum seekers makes us safer. They're lying.

When you close legal pathways, people don't stop coming. They take more dangerous routes. They pay smugglers. They die in the desert. Over 650 migrants died at the southern border in 2024, the deadliest year on record.

Real security comes from orderly processing, not chaos. When people can apply for asylum legally, they don't need smugglers. When families can wait safely, they don't attempt dangerous crossings. When there's due process, we know who's entering and why.

The cartels profit from our cruelty. Every blocked asylum seeker becomes a potential customer for smugglers. Every family stuck in Mexico pays protection money to gangs. We're funding the very criminal organizations we claim to oppose.

What Would Real Solutions Look Like?

We know what works because it's been done before, both here and globally.

During the 1980s, America successfully processed hundreds of thousands of refugees from Southeast Asia. We've welcomed Cubans, Soviets, and Bosnians. We know how to do this. We choose not to.

Other countries manage far more refugees with far fewer resources. Turkey hosts 3.6 million refugees. Colombia has taken 2.5 million Venezuelans. Jordan, with a population of 10 million, hosts 750,000 refugees. America, the richest nation on Earth, claims we can't handle asylum seekers at our southern border?

The Families Torn Apart by American Policy

Let me tell you what happens to real families when asylum dies.

After Wendy Lopez and her family won their asylum case, the government appealed. While waiting for the appeal, they received an email: their status was revoked. They have seven days to leave. After everything they survived, after following every rule, they're told to go back to certain death.

900,000 people entered through CBP One appointments. Now they're being told to self-deport through a new app called CBP Home. Imagine building a life, getting a job, enrolling your kids in school, then getting an email saying you have a week to leave.

Javier, fleeing extortion in El Salvador, was returned to Mexico under Remain in Mexico. Without a lawyer, without speaking English, he was expected to represent himself in U.S. immigration court. He called it "a lost cause." If deported, he said it would be like ordering "five coffins" for his family.

How AHRI Is Fighting for Asylum Rights

The American Human Rights Initiative Foundation believes that the right to seek asylum is fundamental to human dignity. No one should be punished for fleeing violence. No family should choose between separation and death.

We're working with legal organizations challenging these illegal policies in court. We're documenting violations of international law for UN human rights bodies. We're supporting border communities providing humanitarian aid to asylum seekers.

Our advocacy focuses on restoring asylum as a legal right, not a privilege. We're pushing for legislation that would prohibit future presidents from suspending asylum through executive orders. We're demanding that America honor the treaties we've signed and the values we claim to hold.

But legal victories aren't enough if hearts remain closed. We're working to remind Americans of our history as a nation of refugees, from the Pilgrims to the Irish to those fleeing the Holocaust. Every generation has its test. This is ours.

This Is About Who We Are as a Nation

The Statue of Liberty still stands in New York Harbor, though her promise rings hollow: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

We're not being asked to do something unprecedented. We're being asked to honor our own laws, our own treaties, our own history. Every other developed nation manages to process asylum seekers without suspending international law. Why can't we?

Maria still waits in Mexico, not knowing if she'll ever see Lucy again. Benjamín hides from the gangs that will kill him if he's deported. Jimena holds her baby, born in exile, wondering if her child will ever know safety.

These aren't numbers or statistics. They're human beings whose only crime was believing America meant what it said about freedom, justice, and human rights.

When we deny asylum to those fleeing violence, we become complicit in that violence. When we separate families seeking safety, we become the danger they fled. When we violate international law, we lose the moral authority to condemn others who do the same.

Seeking safety is not a crime. It's a human right recognized by every civilized nation. It's time America remembered that.

For Maria, for Lucy, for every family torn apart by our cruelty: we must do better. We must restore asylum. We must honor our obligations. We must remember our humanity.

Because if seeking safety becomes a crime, then we've already lost everything worth protecting.

The American Human Rights Initiative Foundation stands with asylum seekers and refugees worldwide. The right to seek safety from violence is fundamental to human dignity. For more information on our asylum advocacy or to support families at the border, contact us at info@americanhumanrightsinitiativefoundation.org