FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@freedomforimmigrants.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Biden administration is deploying 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in anticipation of the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era asylum ban. The following statement is from Andrea Carcamo, policy director of Freedom for Immigrants.

“The Biden administration is shamefully pulling yet another move straight from Trump’s anti-immigrant playbook. The southern border is already highly militarized. Deploying more troops is a reckless political ploy that serves only to legitimize racist and xenophobic fear-mongering. Armed troops are no substitute to a humane and fair asylum system, and this show of force will undoubtedly embolden ICE and CBP agents to continue terrorizing migrants and people of color across border communities.

“Deterrence strategies such as this have proven deadly, as people seeking safety are pushed into more precarious pathways and faced with impossible life-and-death decisions. People fleeing persecution and those searching for opportunity should be met with dignity, fairness and the ability to exercise their right to protection. More troops at the border is the last thing we need.”

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Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) is devoted to abolishing immigration detention, while ending the isolation of people currently suffering in this profit-driven system. FFI monitors the human rights abuses faced by immigrants detained by ICE through a national hotline and network of volunteer detention visitors, while promoting community-based services that welcome immigrants into the social fabric of the United States.