The Biden administration has proposed a brand new restriction targeting asylum seekers that very closely resembles another policy from back in the Trump administration.
This new rule would block any migrants that do not make use of already available legal pathways to get asylum and do not seek asylum in a third country from applying to get asylum in the United States. Officials with the Biden administration have stated that the rule was first set in place in response to the cancellation of Title 42 immigration restrictions. It also very closely resembles a policy from the Trump administration which similarly sought to ban asylum seekers who did not at first attempt to get asylum in a different country.
“The proposed rule would encourage migrants to avail themselves of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States, or otherwise to seek asylum or other protection in countries through which they travel, thereby reducing reliance on human smuggling networks that exploit migrants for financial gain,” the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice came together to say in a new notice of proposed rulemaking posted this past Tuesday. “It would do so by introducing a rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility for certain noncitizens who neither avail themselves of a lawful, safe, and orderly pathway to the United States nor seek asylum or other protection in a country through which they travel.”
“In the absence of such a measure, which would be implemented on a temporary basis, the number of migrants expected to travel without authorization to the United States is expected to increase significantly, to a level that risks undermining the Departments’ continued ability to safely, effectively, and humanely enforce and administer U.S. immigration law, including the asylum system, in the face of exceptionally challenging circumstances,” the pair of departments went on to say.
Both the DHS and the DOJ spoke up about their optimism for the newest restriction would end up leading to a reduction in the total number of migrants flooding across the southern border, thereby dropping the power of a large number of smuggling networks and helping to decrease the numbers of migrants sitting in already highly overcrowded border areas. This reduction in numbers would make sure that migrant processing is “done in an effective, humane, and efficient manner,” expressed the departments.
After a period of public comment, these new restrictions are slated to go into effect as of May 11th, the very same day that the Biden administration intends to put a stop to the COVID-19 national and public health emergencies. The Title 42 restrictions are also slated to come to an end at that time.
