Report: Trump Administration Seeking to “Decimate” Asylum Seekers’ Rights at UN

The Trump administration is seeking sweeping changes to the rights of asylum seekers that experts say would “decimate” the global refugee system established after World War II, a new report finds.

Reuters, citing internal documents from the State Department and an agency spokesperson, finds the administration is proposing a framework in which asylum seekers would be forced to apply for protection in the first country they enter, not a country of their choosing. This asylum would be temporary, and that country would then decide when it’s safe for the refugee to return.

The administration has plans to hold an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting later this month.

Officials have said that they sought to undo international asylum rights established after World War II. During and after the Holocaust, the U.S. denied refugees entry to the U.S., including Jewish people and other populations who had survived the Nazi Holocaust.

“Perhaps the most important root cause of the mass and illegal migration today is the abuse of refugee and asylum systems,” said Andrew Veprek, President Donald Trump’s pick to run the State Department refugee division, during a confirmation hearing on Thursday, per Reuters.

This is a circular statement that suggests that the effect of a phenomenon is the same as the cause. In reality, the root causes of emigration are most commonly violence in their countries of origin, as well as socioeconomic distress and climate change-fueled natural disasters.

“The current framework of international agreements and norms on migration developed after the Second World War in a completely different geopolitical and economic context. It cannot be expected to function in our modern world, and indeed it does not,” Veprek went on.

The Trump administration has already taken drastic steps to erode the right to asylum. Officials have sought to bar nearly all refugees from entering the U.S. — while giving preference to white South Africans, a blatantly racist policy.

The new proposal would severely limit options for people fleeing persecution, instability, and violence within a global system that is already extremely restrictive for refugees. Thousands of refugees die yearly trying to seek safe harbor in other countries — a crisis that could be mitigated, international migrant rights advocates say, with more permissive and safe immigration policies, or policies seeking to decrease causes of violence and economic instability.

“Trump plans to try to decimate the right to seek asylum, forcing refugees to seek asylum in the first country they enter (rarely safe) and for asylum to be temporary (so they can never rely on starting a new life),” said Kenneth Roth, former Human Rights Watch executive director and human rights advocate. “Other governments should reject his plan.”

The framework appears similar to some of the U.S.’s most restrictive and unlawful “transit” bans on asylum seekers, reflecting the U.S.’s sharp right turn on immigration and asylum policies in recent years. Europe has also become increasingly hostile to immigrants in recent decades, and The i Paper reported on Friday that the U.K.’s Home Secretary is reportedly also prepared to reform the UN-established rights to asylum to be more restrictive.