March 31, 2022, WASHINGTON – In response to reports that the Biden administration will end Title 42 asylum restrictions by the end of May 2022, Barbara Weinstein, director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism and associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, released the following statement:
We welcome the Biden administration’s plans to end the inhumane, illegal Title 42 asylum policy by May 23, 2022. Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has summarily expelled over 1.6 million asylum seekers under Title 42, a policy that used the guise of public health to prevent people from legally seeking refuge in the U.S. Title 42 is only the latest of more than a century of policies to traffic in tropes about immigrants and disease. It deprives asylum seekers of their legal right to pursue asylum protections, allows border officials to expel them with no due process, and disproportionately harms Black and Brown migrants and families. This unjust, unlawful, and unwise policy has been a stain on American immigration policy for far too long.
We learn from the Torah and our experiences through the generations of the importance of protecting those fleeing dangerous conditions. We urge the Biden administration to uphold U.S. and international law and to swiftly welcome all those seeking refuge without discrimination.
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The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is the Washington office of the Union for Reform Judaism, whose more than 850 congregations across North America encompass 1.5 million Reform Jews, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, whose membership includes more than 2,000 Reform rabbis.
