Biden Administration Proposes New Asylum Restrictions for Migrants Arriving at US-Mexico border

(CTN News) – According to a plan presented on Tuesday, the US might prevent tens of thousands of migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border from requesting asylum. This would be the administration of US President Joe Biden’s most comprehensive effort to yet to prevent illegal crossings.

Biden Administration’s Plan to Prevent Asylum Claims at US-Mexico Border

The use of humanitarian programmes accessible to certain nationalities or making an appointment at a U.S. border port of entry would make migrants ineligible for asylum, with some exceptions, under the new regulations.

To be eligible to apply for asylum once in the United States, they must first request protection in the nations they transit through and be turned down.

The measure’s specifics were originally revealed by Reuters. It was put online on Tuesday and will be open to public discussion for 30 days before being considered for final publication.

Initially promising to restore asylum access that had been restricted under his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, Biden, a Democrat who began office in 2021 and is anticipated to run for reelection in 2024, has now changed his mind.

Yet as he has tried to deal with the unprecedented volume of migrant arrivals, critics and some Democratic party members have lambasted him for adopting more and more Trump-style limitations.

Proposed Regulations and Exceptions for Asylum Seekers

Similar attempts under Trump that were thwarted by the courts and met with comparable resistance were mirrored by Biden’s proposal to exclude certain asylum claimants.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pledged to challenge the Biden regulation in court, equating it with the Trump prohibition, which activists referred to as a “transit ban.”

The ACLU lawyer who argued the Trump-era complaint stated, “We successfully fought to halt the Trump transit ban and will file again if the Biden administration follows through with its plan.”

According to the regulation released jointly by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Department of Justice, families and single people would be subject to the limits but unaccompanied youngsters would be excluded (DOJ).

The legislation would only be in place for a two-year window, with the option of an extension.

The Biden plan, according to Karen Musalo, director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco, overlooks the risky circumstances and constrained asylum capacity in the nations where refugees would be expected to seek refuge.

She said that it was a bad example of attempting to ignore your national and international legal commitments.

Last year, the Biden administration started debating the ban and other Trump-style policies as a method to stop illegal border crossings in the event that COVID-era rules enabling many migrants to be sent back to Mexico were lifted.

While the COVID limits, also known as Title 42, are likely to expire on May 11 when the COVID-19 public health emergency ends, the government is pressing forward with tighter asylum regulations.

“Without a meaningful policy change, border encounters could rise, and potentially rise dramatically” after the lifting of Title 42, the text of the proposed rule said, estimating crossings could reach up to 13,000 per day without the COVID restrictions, up from a daily average of about 5,000 in January.

The regulation, according to a Biden administration official who refused to be identified, “is meant to fill the hole that Congress has created by taking no action” to change immigration rules or raise funds for border security.

Requests for comments were not answered by the Mexican authorities.

In January, Biden amended Title 42 to banish more nationalities while enabling certain residents of those nations to petition for humanitarian parole to fly into the United States provided they had sponsors in the United States.

One of the legal avenues the administration claims would enable asylum applicants to get around the suggested limitations is the parole programme, which would be open to up to 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants each month.

Separately, a CBP One app allowed asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border to make a reservation at a U.S. land port of entry. Yet, migrants claim that since the CBP One initiative began in January, spots have swiftly filled up.

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