ActionAid USA’s Director of Policy & Campaigns, Brandon Wu, said:
“The Biden administration’s Executive Order today closing the southern border to asylum seekers is deeply unjust. The decades-long history of harmful U.S. policies – including climate inaction, economic extraction, and support for repressive regimes – is a root cause of the migration that the administration is now trying to stop.
Rather than simply turning away asylum seekers, the U.S. has a moral and legal obligation to provide safe passage and basic rights for people who are trying to build better lives for themselves and their families, or simply trying to survive in the wake of violence, conflict or catastrophe.
An administration committed to human rights and climate justice would welcome asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, while implementing policies to limit or stop the harms that are forcing these migrants to leave their homes in the first place. The climate crisis is increasingly a factor in forced displacement, and the U.S. doing its fair share of climate action – including cutting emissions, providing climate finance to build resilience for communities in developing countries, and welcoming climate-displaced people with open arms – would be a much more humane and effective response to migrants arriving at our southern border.”
