Twelve leading medical and public health experts across the United States called on the Biden administration and Congress today to repeal the Title 42 border expulsions order as planned on May 23. In response to a Tuesday Axios report that the Biden administration is considering a delay of the repeal of the order in response […]

Three to four years after being separated from their children by the U.S. government, deported asylum-seeking parents continue to endure severe psychological trauma, according to a new investigation published today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). The report’s findings underscore the U.S. government’s unfulfilled obligation to provide remedy, rehabilitation, and redress to survivors of family […]

Tres o cuatro años después de haber sido separados de sus hijos por el gobierno de los EE. UU., los padres y madres solicitantes de asilo que fueron deportados continúan padeciendo un trauma psicológico severo, según la más reciente investigación publicada hoy por Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Los hallazgos de esta investigación subrayan la […]

Three to four years after being separated from their children by the U.S. government, deported asylum-seeking parents continue to endure severe psychological trauma.

Submitted by Adam Richards, MD, PhD, MPH, DTM&H, Associate Professor of Global Health and Medicine at The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Member of the Board of Directors and the PHR Asylum Network. Thank you for the opportunity […]

Today the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced its plans to rescind the Title 42 order, which the U.S. government has used to expel asylum seekers and other migrants almost two million times since its enactment in March 2020. While welcoming the long-delayed announcement, medical experts and human rights advocates from Physicians […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reiterates its call on the White House and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to immediately rescind the Title 42 order, through which the U.S. government has expelled asylum seekers and other migrants more than one million times over the past two years.   On March 11, the CDC […]

Originally published by Yale Medicine Magazine 2022 Issue 168, “More than skin deep”. Article written by Sumaiya Sayeed. Of the many reasons to leave one’s home country for a new life elsewhere, war, natural disaster, and violent political or religious persecution are among the worst. For those displaced individuals who have sought a better life […]

NEW YORK — In response to the Biden administration and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s formal support of Congressional action to provide permanent legal status for victims of the Trump-era family separation policy, migrant health experts with first-hand experience evaluating psychological trauma sustained by separated families are calling on the Biden […]

Medical professionals are raising the alarm about the U.S. government’s failure to provide COVID-19 vaccine booster doses to migrants and asylum seekers in government detention. In a letter addressed to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tae D. Johnson, leading medical professionals and […]

The following statement is attributable to Kathryn Hampton, deputy director of the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Asylum Program, in response to news that the Biden administration is exiting negotiations over compensation for families separated at the border: “It is beyond shameful that President Biden’s Department of Justice is standing with the Trump administration officials […]

Asylum seekers and other immigrants who obtained forensic medical evaluations were granted protection in the United States in 81.6 percent of cases facilitated by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) between 2008 and 2018, nearly twice the national asylum grant rate of 42.4 percent during the same period, a new study by PHR and City University of […]

NEW YORK – A new study analyzing the mental health impacts of family separation finds that children and parents seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border experience severe psychological trauma even years after reunification. The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) study provides the first-ever qualitative analysis of the mental health effects of the forced family separation […]

1,383 medical professionals today demanded that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) end the Title 42 border expulsions order that has systematically endangered thousands of people who seek asylum in the United States. Including clinicians from 49 U.S. states and territories, as well as the District of Columbia, the doctors, nurses, and other […]

In response to the Biden administration’s decision to resume deportation and expulsion flights to Haiti and photos of U.S. Border Patrol agents using whips to round up Haitian asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, the following statement is attributable to Cynthia Pompa, asylum program officer at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR):  “It is appalling. Border Patrol agents on horseback are cruelly whipping and rounding up Haitian asylum seekers to push them back to Mexico or fly them back to Haiti. This is […]

Separation of families. Denial of medication and medical care. Nonconsensual medical procedures. For decades, health and rights advocates have documented abuses against people held in U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) detention. However, as COVID-19 began to rage across the United States, pandemic-related inadequacies worsened conditions for detainees and exacerbated the existing threats to their health […]

NEW YORK — On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to block a ruling from a lower court in Texas, effectively reinstating the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which was initially rescinded by the Biden administration in February 2021. Since its inception in 2019, the MPP […]

In response to news that U.S. President Joe Biden will not extend the August 31 deadline for evacuating U.S. citizens and at-risk Afghans from Afghanistan, the following statement is attributable to Susannah Sirkin, director of policy at Physicians for Human Rights: “By publicly refusing to move back his August 31 deadline and committing only to […]

After being thrown out of her home as a teenager by her stepmother, Maria* was raped by the son of her employer, who then claimed her as his property, coerced her into a relationship, and physically and sexually abused her for years. Maria’s daughter was kidnapped and gang raped. Her son was murdered despite Maria […]

 In response to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decision to extend the Title 42 border expulsion order, the following statement is attributable to Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, medical director at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and a professor of internal medicine and of public health at the University of Michigan:  “Title 42 expulsions are indefensible […]

A new investigation by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) documents the severe health and human rights tolls of the Title 42 border expulsion order, under which the United States government has expelled children and adults seeking refuge at the U.S. border nearly one million times since March 2020.   “Neither Safety nor Health: How Title 42 Expulsions Harm Health and Violate […]

The U.S. government continues to expel families and adults to countries where they face severe harm and persecution, violating their rights and failing to safeguard public health.

As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout continues and a renewed sense of normalcy is beginning to be restored in many places in the United States, a human rights crisis remains at the U.S. southern border: hundreds of thousands of people fleeing persecution in their home countries are being turned away without being allowed their legal right […]

Dear President Biden: We, the 105 undersigned organizations, write to express our alarm and disappointment that your administration is reportedly considering plans to continue to use the unlawful Title 42 expulsion policy to block and expel adult asylum seekers for at least two more months and may use punitive measures such as ankle monitors and […]

On President Biden’s 100th day in office, Nilson Barahona-Marriaga joined demonstrators who greeted the president at a rally in Atlanta. “End detention now!” they chanted. “Communities are afraid!” A 39-year-old immigrant from Honduras, Nilson had been recently released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. The Irwin detention center, […]