International Mayan League
Phone: (202) 827-6673
Email: info@mayanleague.org
www.mayanleague.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2023 | Jun Aj
Contact: Andrea Flores, andrea@mayanleague.org
(202) 827-6673
The Illegal Asylum Ban Violates Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights
Piscataway Nation Territory (Washington, D.C.): The International Mayan League denounces the illegal asylum ban that goes into effect today as Title 42 is lifted. The violation of the right of all people to seek asylum willcontinue, with disproportionateimpactsto Indigenouspeoples. Ratherthan usethisopportunity for humane immigration policies and reform, the Biden Administration is responding with “deterrence, enforcement, and diplomacy” - mechanisms that actually increase militarization, detention camps, and possible family separation. Diplomatic arrangements to establish Processing Centers in countries like Colombia and Guatemala, which have some of the highest numbers of violence and murders of human rights leaders, is a testament to the lack of political will and real solutions to address forced migration.
Right now, thousands of people are at the U.S./Mexico border, many who are Indigenous and invisible in plain sight. As we have repeatedly denounced, Indigenous peoples will be denied the right to seek asylum because of :
a) erasure of Indigenous identities due to lack of disaggregated data and misclassification as Latine or Hispanic;
b) Indigenous language exclusion leading to the lack of due process and;
c) Expedited removalbecausecrediblefearisnotprovendueto languagebarriers. Wehaveinformed theU.Sgovernment on multiple occasions of these barriers and stressed the urgency to workdirectly with Indigenous leadership as equal partners to create processes that are actually accessible. Video or audio materials to address low literacy levels and meet the needs and rights of our peoples have previously been recommended. Instead, theU.S.governmentisexpandingtheuseoftheCBPOneApp forasylum scheduling,placing undueburden on asylum seekers from the most marginalized, discriminated, and persecuted peoples and communities.
The final asylum ban rule itself outlines requirements for exemption based on inaccessibility to the “DHS scheduling system due to language barrier, illiteracy,...or sought asylum or other protection in a country through which [they] traveled and received a final decision denying that application.” This implies that Indigenous peoples should be exempt from the asylum ban, not just at the U.S./MX border but in the very countries they are forced to migrate through.
Earlier this year, Te’k, a Maya Ixil human rights defender shared his powerful testimony with the Mayan League. His firsthand account of what he faced under Title 42 while fleeing persecution, clearly demonstrates what will continue to happen to Indigenous peoples fleeing their ancestral lands and seeking refuge under the asylum ban and Title 8, measures that are now part of the Biden Administration’s legacy.
For Indigenous peoples’ root causes of migration like conflicts over our lands, territories, and natural goods of the earth, which expels or forces us to leave our homelands, are historical struggles our peoples have faced for more than 500 years. Indigenous peoples are a disproportionate sector in forced migration yet are invisiblein plain sight. Theasylum banwill furthermarginalizeIndigenouspeoples, making the conditions to seek asylum even more difficult and denying us this right. We are especially concerned that Indigenous women, girls and the LGBTQ2s+ community, already at heightened risk for sex and human trafficking
Phone: (202) 827-6673
Email: info@mayanleague.org
www.mayanleague.org
because of their gender, Indigeneity, and Indigenous languages, will be further impacted by the asylum ban and the iterations of inhumane immigration policies.
The following recommendations have previously been presented to the Administration to ensure that they uphold their domestic and international human rights obligations, and that the rights of Indigenous peoples are respected and guaranteed. We welcome theopportunity to be equal partners in creating sustainable legal pathways that uphold our peoples’ human rights and provide true protection:
1. Work directly with Indigenous peoples advancing the human rights of their peoples and communities in migration through the implementation of the National Congress of American IndiansResolution #ABQ-19-012, Calling to Protect and Advance the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples Migration to the U.S., including the creation of “an Indigenous Language Advisory Commission, comprised of tribal and Indigenous language and cultural experts, to establish an intake process to count Indigenous peoples, develop Indigenous language resources, develop required trainings for all Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Justice (DOJ), and Department of Health and Human Services personnel on indigenous peoples’ human rights”;
2. Adequate training of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents and personnel in charge of conducting credible fear screenings to properly identify Indigenous asylum seekers;
3. Development of a better appointment system that provides migrants with a timely appointment and in their respective language, with a focus on Indigenous languages, which is currently not available through CBP One;
4. Further investment in language interpreters with an emphasis on Indigenous language interpreters for asylum seekers, and not militarization and detention;
5. Halting all efforts of reinstalling family detention, which presents additional hurdles for asylum seekers and migrants;
6. WorkingwithIndigenouspeoplesandinstitutionsinourcountriesoforigintomeaningfullyaddress root causes of forced expulsion from our lands and territories.
About the International Mayan League
The InternationalMayanLeague isthe onlyMayawomenandyouth-led,grassrootsMaya organization in the United States and is located in Piscataway Nation Territory (Washington, D.C.). Founded in 1991 by Maya refugees fleeing the war and genocide in Guatemala, our purpose is to unite Maya peoples and allies in the United States (U.S.), educate on the root causes of forced migration, offer a platform to advance and protect the human rights of the Maya people, and assist in the inclusion of Maya leaders and other Indigenous peoples in decision making spaces that affect our peoples, communities, and futures; in particular, the Maya diaspora
