On Monday, March 27, 2023, MHSL Professor Ana Pottratz Acosta submitted a letter-comment in opposition to proposed regulations changing the asylum process on behalf of Frente Accion Latinx de Minnesota (FALM). FALM is a local medical-legal coalition comprised of physicians and medical professionals, lawyers and legal service organizations and community organizers working to address inequities impacting immigrant populations, founded and lead by Dr. Miguel Fiol in the Dept. of Neurology at the UMN Medical School. This letter comment on behalf of FALM was authored by Prof. Acosta, Adjunct Professor Kathy Moccio, and Jayashree Venkateswaran and Kelsi Nusbaum, two students in the Mitchell Hamline Health Law Clinic.
The letter was submitted in response to proposed regulations by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice as part of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) Notice and Comment process Federal Agencies are required to undertake when promulgating new regulations. The FALM letter comment was submitted in response to new proposed regulations by the Biden Admin, which would significantly change the process individuals go through to request asylum at the border. These changes under the new regulations include: 1) requiring individuals to schedule an appointment to request asylum at a Port of Entry using the CBP One Smartphone App (which creates a number of barriers for asylum seekers) and 2) imposing a rebuttable presumption of ineligibility for asylum for anyone who crosses the border unlawfully between ports of entry if they did not seek asylum or protection in a third country they travelled through enroute to the U.S. (i.e. asylum transit ban similar to a policy implemented by the Trump Admin in 2019). Because FALM is a medical-legal coalition and because the Mitchell Hamline Health Law Clinic (the clinic I teach) is focused on addressing social determinants of health, the letter focused on the negative impact to the health and safety of asylum seekers that would be caused by the proposed regulations.
In addition to FALM as the organization that submitted the letter comment and the Mitchell Hamline Health Law Clinic, as the lead author of the letter comment, the final letter included signatures from nearly 30 additional organizational and individual signatories.
Read the full letter: FALM Letter Comment to Proposed Asylum Regulations – FINAL