While Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador praises the migration policies of US President Joe Biden’s administration, UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk has sharply criticized the recently announced measures to curb illegal immigration. According to the expert, these could violate fundamental human rights.
Biden is under intense political pressure in the US over a record number of illegal border crossings. Most migrants enter the country through the 3,200-kilometer border with Mexico. “Our entire hemisphere is witnessing an unprecedented migration, greater than any time in history,” Biden said Tuesday in Mexico City, where he attended the North American summit with Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He called for more cooperation on this issue and thanked Mexico for its recent agreement to take in more migrants rejected by the US.
Biden had already presented the plans shortly before his visit to Mexico: according to this, the US wants to return to Mexico 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela who have entered the US illegally. In return, up to 30,000 people from these countries will be given the chance to legally enter the country every month – but only if they meet strict requirements. López Obrador indicated during Biden’s visit that he might be willing to elaborate on this. However, the summit did not lead to any further concrete agreements of this nature.
Violation of non-repudiation?
UN Human Rights Commissioner Türk, on the other hand, sees a possible contradiction with the “prohibition of collective expulsion and the principle of non-refoulement”. The international principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where he or she is at risk of torture or exposure to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. “The right to seek asylum is a human right, regardless of people’s origins, their migration status or how they arrived at an international border,” Türk said on Wednesday.
Source: Krone
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