Why the U.S. Is So Unfair to Central American Refugees
For Decades, American Foreign Policy Positions Pre-Determined Which Asylum Seekers Get Accepted or Rejected
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement on April 6, 2018 that all unauthorized border crossers will be federally prosecuted might sound like a reversal of U.S. policy. So might his June 11, 2018 decision that being a victim of domestic violence or gang violence generally will no longer be considered grounds for receiving asylum.
But, as someone who has been analyzing asylum since the 1980s, I look at these announcements and see continuity. Sessions’ policies fit a pattern, going back decades, of excluding asylum seekers from Central America from the human …
