T’ruah condemns the restart of Migrant Protection Protocols
NEW YORK — Changing direction from previous immigration guidance, the Biden Administration announced plans to restart the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or “Remain in Mexico” policy, which undermines the legal, moral, and human right to seek safety. Going well beyond the Texas court’s order to reimplement MPP ‘in good faith,’ the Biden Administration has now expanded a cruel policy and enacted even greater harm against people seeking refuge. In response, T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization that represents over 2,300 rabbis and cantors and their communities in North America, strongly condemned the decision and urged the administration to honor its commitment to uphold the country’s refugee laws.
T’ruah CEO, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, released the following statement:
“The ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy goes against our country’s commitment to human rights, including protecting the lives and dignity of every human being. I am dismayed that President Biden is reneging on his campaign promises to protect the legal rights and dignity of migrants by affirming the previous administration’s callous and immoral decision to turn our backs on refugees and those seeking asylum.
“As Jews, we know that immigration policy can be a matter of life or death. Many of our own families fled danger to find refuge in the United States, and many of our family members died after our country’s borders were closed to them.
“As T’ruah Rabbi Jesse Olitzky — who visited the southern border with a T’ruah clergy delegation — said, forcing asylum seekers to wait outside of the United States to plead their case is ‘racist, immoral, and unethical.’ I was with Rabbi Olitzky in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and saw firsthand the tents along the border and overcrowded shelters in which people seeking asylum are being illegally forced to wait. Even if there are modifications to the policy under the new administration, its flaws are basic and fundamental to its design. Remain in Mexico, along with other xenophobic policies such as Title 42, send a message that the United States will not uphold its international human rights obligations.
“The Torah teaches the obligation to extend love and care to people from outside our home society: ‘You shall love this person as yourself, for you were gerim [foreigners] in the land of Egypt.’ (Leviticus 19:34). Only with a just, transparent, and timely system for refugees to gain legal entry into the United States will we be truly living out both our Jewish and American ideals.”
About T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights mobilizes a network of more than 2,000 rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism that, together with the Jewish community, act on the Jewish imperative to respect and advance the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we call upon Jews to assert Jewish values by raising our voices and taking concrete steps to protect and expand human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.