The U.S. has finalized regulations that it expects to do review the asylum process along the southern border was announced by the Biden administration on Thursday, although federal officials said the plan will initially be implemented on a small scale starting in late spring.
President Biden’s nominees have argued that the long-awaited rule will speed up the government’s ability to shelter asylum seekers fleeing persecution while deporting those deemed ineligible for U.S. protection. Officials hope the changes will discourage migrants who do not meet asylum requirements but are looking for better economic opportunities to cross the border illegally.
A key operational change will be the authorization of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asylum officers to approve or deny U.S. asylum applications for migrants who pass the initial interviews, rather than transferring these claims to the courts. of the country, which are more than 1.7 million cases behind.
U.S. law allows officials to grant asylum to migrants who demonstrate that, if deported, they could be persecuted because of their race, nationality, politics, religion, or social group membership. But due to the massive backlog, asylum seekers can wait years before their applications are heard and decided.
Government officials have said that these long periods of adjudication, which can be extended by appeals, encourage migrants fleeing economic hardship to use the asylum system to stay and work in the United States indefinitely. Delays also hurt asylum seekers with valid claims, officials argue, trapping them in a legal limbo of many years.
The changes to the regulations, which are expected to take effect in just over two months, are intended to reduce the deadline for deciding asylum cases from 90 to 90 days, Biden administration officials said. during an information session with journalists.
“The current system for handling asylum applications on our borders has long needed repair,” DHS Secretary Alexander Mayorkas said in a statement. “Through this rule, we are building a more functional and sensible asylum system to ensure that people who are eligible receive protection more quickly, while those who are not will be eliminated quickly.”
Government officials said they expect the review to begin in late May or early June, but noted that agencies are still debating where the plan will be launched along the southern border and which migrants will be initially prosecuted. according to the new procedures.
“There will be a very careful and slow increase in cases in this system,” a senior administration official told reporters. “We don’t expect to have a large number of individuals placed in this process during the first few weeks and months, as we make sure the process works the way we anticipate it should.”
The regulation will apply to migrants in U.S. custody who are subject to the so-called “expedited expulsion” procedure, a process created in 1996 that allows officials to deport recent cross-border people without a court hearing unless they express the fear of damage to his home. country and show that their fear is credible.
Single adult migrants and families traveling with children may be subject to expedited expulsion, but U.S. law prohibits authorities from applying the policy to unaccompanied minors.
If migrants express fear of persecution, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officers will have 30 days to interview them and determine if the fear is credible. If migrants fail these interviews, they can be deported quickly unless they ask an immigration judge to reconsider their claim. Judges would then have seven days to confirm or annul the asylum officer’s determination.
If migrants establish a credible fear of persecution, they will receive an appointment for a more detailed interview with an asylum officer between 21 and 45 days after the initial selection determination. Asylum officers would then have 60 days after this interview to deny or grant asylum to migrants. Migrants who are granted asylum are allowed to remain in the United States indefinitely and qualify for permanent residence one year after the decision.
If a migrant’s application for asylum is denied at this stage, his or her case will be referred to the Department of Justice’s immigration courts, which will hold conflicting hearings. The judges would then be tasked with deciding within 90 days whether the deportation of migrants should be ordered or whether they would be allowed to stay because they meet the requirements to receive humanitarian aid.
The deadline is significantly shorter than the usual cases of immigration courts, officials said, because judges will receive all documents previously reviewed by asylum officers, including transcripts of interviews. Speeding up this deadline would also help to clear up the backlog of court cases.
“Judges will not start from scratch,” a senior Justice Department official said. “They will receive these USCIS cases with a fairly substantial history.”
In addition to asylum, immigration judges may grant minor forms of protection, known as detention of deportation and protection under the United Nations Convention against Torture, to eligible migrants fleeing persecution. or torture. Unlike asylum, these protections do not grant beneficiaries permanent status.
Individuals with a deportation order can appeal the decision to the Immigration Appeals Board and then, if necessary, to a federal circuit court. But these appeals could take years to complete. Once migrants have final deportation orders, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can arrest and deport them.
During Wednesday’s briefing, government officials acknowledged that USCIS’s asylum division, which is already reviewing more than 432,000 pending applications, does not have sufficient resources or staff to immediately implement the new procedures in large scale.
The ambitious policy also faces other challenges and unresolved issues, such as whether migrants will be detained during the proceedings and, if so, where.
According to acquaintances with the deliberations, the administration has considered the possibility of erecting campus-like processing centers to examine asylum seekers in a more humane environment than the Customs and Security Protection facilities. Borders, which are not designed to accommodate migrants during the three days. These facilities have not yet been erected.
The detention of asylum seekers prosecuted under the new rule could also provoke shouts among progressive advocates, who denounce the detention of immigrants. By contrast, Republican lawmakers would likely criticize the release of migrants in American communities.
It is also unclear whether the current pandemic-era border policy of expelling most migrants for public health reasons will be in place when the new asylum rules come into force. Under the politics of the Trump era, known as Title 42U.S. border agents have deported migrants more than 1.7 million times since March 2020 without allowing them to seek asylum.
If a recent court ruling is maintained, title 42 could be reduced or terminated from April. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, authorized by Title 42, will decide whether to maintain the policy before March 30.
- In:
- Mexico-United States border
- US Customs and Border Protection
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