Trump asylum restrictions set back
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has suffered a series of fresh legal and political setbacks in its efforts to tighten U.S. asylum laws, raising doubts about the sustainability of the immigration deal with Mexico that the president announced six weeks ago.
Over the past week, Mexico and Guatemala have pulled back from entering into “safe third country” agreements that would require migrants passing through those countries to apply for asylum there before reaching the United States.
A federal judge in California also blocked a new regulatory provision that aimed to accomplish a similar outcome by denying most migrants entry at the southern border if they had not applied for asylum in the first safe country they reached.
The upshot is that the administration has come up empty in enacting sweeping changes to U.S. asylum policies that President Donald Trump suggested in early June would be a major component in his immigration deal with Mexico to address the mounting humanitarian crisis at the border.
Without those changes, experts said, the administration will have difficulty maintaining and building upon the modest initial progress it has made in reversing a spike of asylum seekers that has overwhelmed the U.S. immigration system and roiled the political debate in the early stages of the 2020 presidential campaign.
“That’s a problem,” said David Inserra, a homeland security analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “If the deterrent is not there, people will show up at the borders. If they are not sent back, that magnet is still on.”
On Capitol Hill, Trump’s allies expressed frustration at the setbacks on asylum and said steps by the Mexican government to add 6,000 national guard forces at its southern border with Guatemala and another 15,000 at the U.S. border will have limited success in curbing the surge of asylum-seekers from Central America.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, used his index finger and thumb to make a “zero” sign Thursday when asked how much progress had been made in addressing the border challenges. The agreement with Mexico has helped a bit, Cornyn said, but he emphasized that the Mexican government would have to do more.
“It’s a Band-Aid,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said. “The smugglers and coyotes will find a way around the Mexican army. They’ll bribe people. This is not a sustainable fix.”
A White House official faulted Congress for failing to amend asylum laws, as the administration has requested. “While members continue to ignore their responsibility, other countries can also take significant actions to help,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak bluntly. “If those countries refuse, however, then the United States will have no choice but to consider travel bans, significant actions on remittances and/or tariffs.”
Trump announced the immigration deal with Mexico on June 7, trumpeting it as a major victory after he threatened to enact tariffs on all Mexican goods. In addition to dispatching the national guard forces, Mexico agreed to work with the Trump administration to expand a program in which asylum seekers at U.S. ports of entry would be required to wait in Mexico as their immigration cases are adjudicated, a process that has stranded thousands of migrants in border towns for months.