Border Patrol tests ‘secret’ program to quickly deport asylum-seekers

EL PASO, Texas — The Trump administration has begun testing a secretive program to speed up deporting asylum-seeking migrants after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

The pilot program — known as Prompt Asylum Claim Review — streamlines the asylum process so migrants seeking refuge in the United States will receive a decision in 10 days or less, rather than the months or years it currently takes, according to Customs and Border Protection officials. The reviews are largely to determine if Central American migrants can be sent back to their homelands.

The accelerated reviews seek to deter migrants from attempting to illegally cross the U.S. border. El Paso is the only place where the administration is testing the program, which started this month, according to U.S. officials.

Migrants apprehended in the El Paso area are taken to a 1,500-bed soft-sided Border Patrol facility opened in August and remains largely empty because the number of migrants taken into custody has plunged in recent months. They are given one day after arriving to call family or a lawyer, then they have an interview with an asylum officer to determine whether they have a credible fear of persecution if returned to their home country, according to a Customs and Border Protection official who described the program on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak about it publicly.

Immigration lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union said the administration’s pilot test denies asylum seekers due process and highlights the limited role lawyers can play; lawyers aren’t allowed to meet with their clients in Border Patrol stations and are limited to brief conversations by phone.

“This is yet another example of Border Patrol carrying out a pilot project in secret, circumventing Congress and public scrutiny,” said Astrid Dominguez, director of the ACLU’s Border Rights Center. “Border Patrol is fast-tracking deportations while holding migrants at detention facilities … and barring oversight to ensure fair and humane treatment. Given Border Patrol’s track record of abuse, the last thing the agency should be allowed to do is shove migrants through a life-or-death decision-making process devoid of basic due-process protections.”

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to questions about the program. Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration court system, said the rights of migrants are respected.

“[The Executive Office of Immigration Review] remains committed to ensuring that all who come before its courts will receive due process and a timely, fair adjudication, the outcome of which is based on the law,” Mattingly said.

New Trump administration policies make it difficult if not impossible for non-Mexican migrants to pass a credible-fear interview if they didn’t seek asylum in the first country they passed through after leaving their homeland. If an asylum officer finds migrants cannot meet the credible-fear standard, the migrants appear before an immigration judge via videoconferencing. The migrants are then processed for deportation or moved into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, depending on the interview finding and the judge’s ruling, according to immigration officials.

Immigration judges from New Mexico are reviewing the credible-fear findings via video hearings with migrants in the El Paso project, Mattingly said.

She said while attorneys can be present at judicial review of fear findings, the law precludes them from representing their clients at the hearing.

In 2017, the Trump administration used El Paso as a pilot test for its controversial zero-tolerance policy, which required prosecution of everyone arrested for entering the country illegally and separated children from arrested parents. The administration implemented the policy border wide in spring 2018 but quickly abandoned it under heavy criticism.

A new rule implemented in July generally requires migrants to seek asylum in the first safe country they enter, part of an effort to reduce historically high migration flows. A California federal judge quickly blocked the rule from taking effect.