Local Leaders Decry ‘Moral Mistake’ in DHS Threat to Legal Refugees

By Adam Stone

A coalition of community leaders are gathering today at Market Square in Ossining to condemn a recent letter sent by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has sparked national outrage over treatment of legal asylum seekers.

The press conference features Open Arms for Refugees, a local nonprofit supporting asylum seekers in Westchester County. 

An Apr. 11 letter from DHS – which can be viewed here – begins: “It is time for you to leave the United States.”

“DHS is now exercising its discretion to terminate your parole,” the letter also asserts. “Unless it expires soon, your parole will terminate 7 days from this notice.”

The Open Arms for Refugees local group is calling for a formal retraction and public apology from DHS over the letter it recently sent to a reported more than 900,000 people, many of whom have legal permission to remain in the United States. 

The letter instructed recipients to “deport” themselves – language legal experts and immigrant advocates say misrepresents the law and risks coercing vulnerable people into abandoning their rights.

Ted Buerger, a co-founder of Open Arms for Refugees, said the letter has created “panic and confusion in our community,” also emphasizing how many of those who received the message are in the U.S. legally, with “pending asylum claims or other lawful grounds to stay.”

“My opinion is that this was a moral mistake,” Buerger said in a phone interview with The Examiner this morning. “The letter is designed to intimidate, to use fear and a very short time frame.” 

He said the group is asking DHS to guard against the use of “intimidation, fear and mischaracterization of the law to pressure people to surrender their rights without due process.” 

In the last three years, Buerger said his refugee group has helped resettled 20 different local households, and 70 people overall, mostly from Afghanistan. 

Of the 70 people in the Open Arms for Refugees community, two received the threatening letter. 

People who used the CBP One app received the letters. (CBP One is a platform developed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection that allows asylum seekers to schedule appointments).

“They were quite shell shocked,” Buerger said in the phone interview. “You can imagine getting a letter saying you have to leave in seven days. But because they have properly filed for asylum and have legal hearings pending, the letter should never have been sent to them.”

A clause in the letter does theoretically provide reassurance for people here legally. 

“If you do not depart the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States — unless you have otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain here,” the letter states.

But that is little comfort to many. 

“Well, in a way, yes,” Buerger replied when asked if the clause should reassure people from a legal standpoint. “I mean, it is the reason that they are safe. But the fact of the matter is that if you get that letter and you’ve been traumatized before coming here, you are now re-traumatized. And so it was very debilitating to the people who received the letter, and it was frankly debilitating to our entire community, because the people in the community are now saying, ‘We don’t know that we are really wanted here.’”

The Associated Press reported yesterday how there was “an apparent glitch in the Trump administration’s dismantling of another Biden-era policy that allowed people to live and work in the country temporarily.” 

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is quietly revoking two-year permits of people who used an online appointment app at U.S. border crossings with Mexico called CBP One, which brought in more than 900,000 people starting in January 2023,” the article explains.

The AP also reported U.S. Customs and Border Protection as acknowledging that notices may have been sent to unintended people, including lawyers, if beneficiaries provided contact information for U.S. citizens. 

“It is addressing those situations case-by-case,” the article states.

Buerger’s group also described a series of dramatic events to help crystallize the local human toll of the letter.

After fleeing Afghanistan when the Taliban regained control in 2021, Freshta Nazari – once a young girl in a small village with few opportunities – resettled in the U.S., became a lawyer, and now helps other refugees through Open Arms for Refugees, the same group that first supported her.

At this year’s local Volunteer New York! Volunteer Spirit Awards on Apr. 11 at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, the Afghan refugee was honored to a standing ovation from about 600 people. 

“Moments later, her close friend ‘M’ received the distressing mass email from the DHS,” Open Arms for Refugees explained in a public bulletin. “M’s face turned white, her joy replaced with tears. We confirmed with attorneys that M was not subject to deportation. We consoled her. But the wound is already inflicted. The pain does not go away because the knife is withdrawn.”

The letter has also created massive confusion for many across the country – for instance, NBC News reported last week, on Apr. 17, about a physician born in the U.S. who received the letter.  

“The language seemed pretty threatening to whomever it might actually apply to,” Dr. Lisa Anderson, a physician from Cromwell, Connecticut, told NBC.

In addition to Buerger, an advisory noted how the press event in Ossining today also includes Assembly Member Dana Levenberg, Director of the Community Law Practice at Neighbors Link Karin Anderson-Pozner, Reverends Todd Farnsworth and Daniel Lawlor from the Briarcliff-Ossining Ministerial Association, along with other advocates and officials, and a Special Immigrant Visa holder from Afghanistan named Zia, whose last name is being withheld.