Brooklyn Defender Services (“BDS”) submits this comment in response to Application of Certain Mandatory Bars in Fear Screenings, a Notice of Proposed Rule (“NPRM”) published on May 13, 2024 by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). For the reasons set forth below, BDS firmly opposes the NPRM in its entirety. If implemented, the NPRM would undermine the ability of people fleeing persecution—and of adjudicators in the United States—to fairly and comprehensively evaluate eligibility for asylum and other fear-based protection. This impairment, in turn, would expand the recent executive and regulatory action to restrict the right to seek asylum at the United States’s southern border—efforts that specifically target people of color. BDS urges DHS to rescind the unlawful NPRM in its entirety.

Read our full public comment here.