SPLC Statement on Extension of CDC Order

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued the following statement by Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project, regarding the indefinite extension of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order sanctioning the  summary expulsion of unaccompanied children and asylum seekers without any due process: 
 
“Once again the president is trying to exploit the ongoing global crisis to pursue an anti-immigrant agenda by using the CDC to further an ideological agenda. 
 
“Public health experts have confirmed that expelling hundreds of unaccompanied children and blocking asylum seekers is not a rational response to the public health challenges our country faces. Instead of turning asylum seekers and unaccompanied children away at the U.S. border, we can and should follow the advice of public health experts to implement evidence-based policies that will protect all of us and allow us to live up to our moral and legal responsibilities to these vulnerable groups. 
 
“Common sense measures, such as promoting social distancing at border crossings, providing hand sanitizer and handwashing stations, and permitting asylum seekers to stay with family members or other contacts in the U.S. while they await their hearings would all do more to protect public health than closing the border to asylum seekers.”