UN agencies have asked the US to continue to allow asylum seekers access to the country and be given due process following US President Donald Trump's announcement to "permanently pause" migration from all "third world countries".
Trump declared the freeze on Friday following the death of a national guard member who had been shot near the White House in an ambush investigators say was carried out by an Afghan national who entered the US in 2021.
Asked to respond to Trump's remarks, UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing: "They are entitled to protection under international law, and that should be given due process."
UN refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun echoed those remarks.
"When people who need protection arrive in their territory, they have to have a due process of asylum. And then they have to have access to territory," she said, adding that the overwhelming majority of refugees are law-abiding members of the host community.
"So we really want to appeal at this point to the states who are hosting refugees and asylum seekers," she said.
National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe were shot in Washington, DC on 28 November. Beckstrom later died of her injuries, while Wolfe remained in hospital. Source: EPA / Will Oliver
Trump said he would end all federal benefits and subsidies for "noncitizens", adding he would "denaturalise migrants who undermine domestic tranquillity" and deport any foreign national deemed a public charge, security risk, or "non-compatible with Western civilisation".
He said the plan would include cases approved under former president Joe Biden's administration.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely.
Share
