U.S. finalizes asylum overhaul plans

Changes include slashing process time from about five years to six months

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has finalized a plan to overhaul the system for immigrants seeking asylum in the United States, aiming to take a burden off the backlogged immigration courts in what some experts see as the most sweeping change to the process in a quarter-century.

Under the new policy, which the administration released Thursday as an interim final rule, some migrants seeking asylum will have their claims heard and evaluated by asylum officers instead of immigration judges.

The goal, administration officials said, is for the entire process to take six months, compared with a current average of about five years. The plan is to release many asylum-seekers through a parole status while they go through the process, which critics say will draw even more hopeful migrants to the border. In recent weeks, border officials have been apprehending more than 13,000 migrants a day, according to internal data shared with The New York Times.

More than 670,000 cases were pending in immigration court alone at the end of February.

The new rule comes as border officials try to manage a record number of migrants crossing the southwestern border. Thousands of migrants in the country illegally are already being released, many with plans to apply for asylum.

“It very well could be one of the most significant reforms to the asylum system in a long time, going beyond undoing the Trump administration’s attempts to limit access to asylum, and actually institute meaningful structural reforms,” said Austin C. Kocher, a geographer at Syracuse University.

The final rule did not change substantially from the version proposed in August, which drew more than 5,000 public comments.

Officials from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Office and Executive Office for Immigration Review, where asylum cases are handled, said Wednesday that the process would be rolled out slowly.

For the plan to be fully operational, the government needs to hire hundreds of new asylum officers to handle about 75,000 asylum-seekers a year.

“Through this rule, we are building a more functional and sensible asylum system to ensure that individuals who are eligible will receive protection more swiftly, while those who are not eligible will be rapidly removed,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement.

Asylum cases make up about 40% of the 1.7 million case backlog.

Many immigration advocates raised concerns about rushing migrants through the process and denying them due process.

“Rushing asylum-seekers through adjudications without sufficient time to secure legal representation, gather evidence or prepare their cases is inefficient and counterproductive,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First.

Some have expressed concerns that the plan will involve what many advocates say is a flawed and unfair process known as expedited removal. The law, established in 1996, gave immigration officials the authority to deport people without a hearing or a lawyer if they did not express a fear of returning to their country.

In the expedited removal process, border officials ask migrants if they are afraid to return to their own countries. Migrants who say they have a fear of returning are scheduled for a “credible fear” interview with an asylum officer.

Under the old plan, migrants who passed those interviews joined many others waiting in the U.S. for years to appear before an immigration judge and officially apply for asylum. But under the new plan, migrants who pass the initial screening will then make their case to an asylum officer.

According to a government analysis, the number of migrants in expedited removal proceedings who claimed they were afraid to return to their country has increased over the years. In 2006, for example, 5% asked for credible fear interviews; in 2018, 42% did.

The new rule will go into effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. During that time, the administration said it would accept new comments.

For now, potential asylum-seekers also face a pandemic-related public health order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that gives border officials the authority to expel migrants at the border, denying them the chance to ask for asylum. That will continue to be the policy for as long as the public health rule is in place, Mayorkas said recently.