(TND) — The Biden administration is pushing for changes to speed up the rejection of some asylum claims.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday afternoon that it proposed a rule to allow some claim denials in a matter of days versus potentially years.
The number of migrants the new rule would apply to is small, DHS said.
It would apply to those denied a legal basis to remain in the United States based on risk to our national security or public safety.
That includes migrants who have been convicted of a particularly serious crime, participated in the persecution of others, are inadmissible on national security or terrorism-related grounds, or for whom there are reasonable grounds to deem them a danger to national security, according to DHS.
The rule would permit asylum officers to make those determinations during the initial “credible fear” screening with the asylum-seeker. That takes place within days of the initial encounter.
“The proposed rule we have published today is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of the American public by more quickly identifying and removing those individuals who present a security risk and have no legal basis to remain here,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a news release. “We will continue to take action, but fundamentally it is only Congress that can fix what everyone agrees is a broken immigration system.”
Kevin R. Johnson, an expert in immigration law and policy at UC Davis, weighed in on the potential rule change Thursday morning, when some media outlets had cited unnamed sources previewing the DHS announcement.
“It appears like there'll be a vast amount of discretion given to border officers to, in effect, immediately deny relief and return people,” Johnson said. “That provides control and some reduction of asylum claims. The question is whether ... it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
The risk is over-screening of asylum claims or making mistakes by summarily rejecting people when they might have real and reasonable fears of persecution in their home country, he said.
“And I think that's kind of the issue,” he said. “That's the balance that we're trying to come up with here, protecting people with legitimate asylum claims while deterring frivolous claims.”
Johnson said there are obviously political ramifications to this proposed change.
Biden wants to look tougher on border security in an election cycle.
And it would be tougher, Johnson said.
“He's trying to show that the Biden administration is securing the border, is responding to popular concerns with the border, is responding to Democratic mayors in places in the north who are complaining about the impacts of migrants on their cities, and really trying to calm Democratic concerns as well as Republican concerns with immigration,” Johnson said.
The U.S. saw a record of around 302,000 southwest border crossings this past December.
Encounters fell to between about 176,000 and around 190,000 in each of the last three months.
But the nation has seen close to 2.5 million southwest border encounters each of the last two years, after averaging about 560,000 a year between 2014 and 2020.
ncG1vNJzZmivmpawtcKNnKamZ56axLR7zZqroqeeYsSwvsudZpuhlJq7bq3DpqCnoaOpv6LAyKilZqiipL2wv8SsZKutnJp6tbuMrKeenZRiwrF50qiknmWRqMatwcxmm56mmZa5tHnIpqSin6KWwaq7zWaZqKqUmr9uv8ScrKuhpK56rrXGq5inrKNivbC4yK2gnKtdmrmmr9Oipqdlk66wrbGMnZypmaKpuqa602amn2WYpLqmuMCnm2arlZjCs7XTsmSapJWfrq%2Bw0ahkppmppL%2BsrdJmrJxllJbDqr8%3D