The Biden administration is reportedly considering making temporary changes to asylum rules issued earlier this summer harder to undo by increasing threshold numbers needed to end the rules to likely unattainable levels — effectively causing them to be permanent.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order in June changing how migrants coming to the U.S. could apply for asylum. Previously, a person could request asylum protections whether they crossed at a legal port of entry or entered the country in a different way, a policy consistent with international laws. But Biden’s order changed that, allowing officials at the border to turn people back if they didn’t enter at a port of entry and make the request there.
The order stipulated that the new rule could only be ended when crossings went down to 1,500 daily on average over a seven-day period. Although crossings have gone down significantly since the policy was implemented, that daily threshold hasn’t yet been met.
Even so, the administration is considering making it even harder to meet that daily average, by raising the number of days needed from a seven-day average to a 28-day average, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official who spoke anonymously to CBS News about the matter.
The changes being considered by the Biden administration would also require individuals previously exempted from being counted under the rule to abide by it. Under the June executive order, for example, unaccompanied migrant children were not included in the count of daily migrants seeking asylum. Under the new changes being considered, however, they would be.
Lee Gelernt, an immigrant rights lawyer with the ACLU who is preparing a lawsuit against the original executive order, told CBS News that the proposed changes would be unlawful.
“The rule is patently illegal and was supposed to be temporary but these contemplated changes would further cement the illegality,” Gelernt said.
Other immigrant rights advocates and organizations similarly panned the proposal on social media.
“They absolutely should NOT do this,” said Tim Young, director of public relations at Global Refuge, calling the proposed plan by the Biden administration “outrageous.”
“We are the world’s humanitarian leader, and yet our leaders keep coming up with creative ways to move the goalposts on some of the most vulnerable migrants seeking safety,” Young added, voicing his disdain on X.
“There is no doubt that we need to rethink the current asylum system, which would include giving it an infusion of resources so that people don’t have to wait 5 years for a decision,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at American Immigration Council, also said on X. “But cutting it off to whole swathes of people for reasons unrelated to their claims isn’t a fix.”
“This is a shameful moment,” wrote the account for Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “U.S. immigration policy should not slam the door in the face of those seeking safety. We must show up with moral integrity to modernize broken systems — instead of solidifying policies that will force family separations for generations to come.”
“The asylum shutdown rule is already illegal. It is already endangering the lives of refugees seeking safety,” The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies wrote. “These changes would make it even more impossible for people to exercise their rights, putting vulnerable families, kids, and adults directly in harm’s way.”
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