What might these changes do?
Humanitarian parole
Using humanitarian parole, the U.S. government can let people into the country by essentially bypassing the regular immigration process. This power is supposed to be used on a case-bycase basis for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit.” Migrants are usually admitted for a pre-determined period and there’s no path toward U.S. citizenship.
Over the years, administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have used humanitarian parole to admit people into the U.S. and help groups of people from all over the world. It’s been used to admit people from Hungary in the 1950s, from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the latter half of the 1970s, and Iraqi Kurds who had worked with the U.S. in the mid-1990s, according to research by the Cato Institute.
Under Biden, the U.S. has relied heavily on humanitarian parole. The U.S. airlifted nearly 80,000 Afghans from Kabul and brought them to the U.S. after the Taliban takeover. The U.S. has admitted tens of thousands of Ukrainians who fled after the Russian invasion.
In January, the Democratic administration announced a plan to admit 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela via humanitarian parole, provided those migrants had a financial sponsor and flew to the U.S. instead of going to the U.S.-Mexico border for entry.
The latest U.S. government figures show that nearly 270,000 people had been admitted into the country through October under that program. Separately, 324,000 people have gotten appointments through a mobile app called CBP One that is used to grant parole to people at land crossings with Mexico.
What might change with asylum?
Asylum is a type of protection that allows a migrant to stay in the U..S. and have a path to American citizenship. To qualify, someone has to demonstrate fear of persecution due to a fairly specific set of criteria: race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinions. Asylum-seekers must be on U.S. soil when they ask for this protection.
They generally go through an initial screening called a “credible fear interview.” If they are determined to have a chance of getting asylum, they are allowed to stay in the U.S. to pursue their case in immigration court. That process can take years.
Critics say the problem is that most people do not end up getting asylum when their case finally makes it to immigration court. But they say migrants know that if they claim asylum, they will be allowed to stay in America for years.
Lawmakers are discussing raising the bar that migrants need to meet during that initial credible fear interview. Those who do not meet it would be sent home.
But Paul Schmidt, a retired immigration court judge, said the credible fear interview was never intended to be so tough. Migrants are doing the interview soon after arriving at the border from an often arduous and traumatizing journey, he said. Schmidt said the interview is more of an “initial screening” to weed out those with frivolous asylum claims.
Schmidt also said some immigration judges apply overly restrictive standards and that the system is so backlogged that it is hard to know the most recent and reliable statistics.
What is expedited removal?
Expedited removal, created in 1996 by Congress, basically allows low-level immigration officers, as opposed to a judge, to quickly deport certain immigrants. It was not widely used until 2004 and generally has been used to deport people apprehended within 100 miles of the Mexican or Canadian border within two weeks of their arrival.
Defenders say it relieves the burden on the backlogged immigration courts. Immigration advocates say its use is prone to errors and does not give migrants enough protections, such as having a lawyer help them argue their case. As president, Republican Donald Trump pushed to expand this fast-track deportation policy nationwide and for longer periods of time. Opponents sued and that expansion never happened.
Much of the disagreement over these proposed changes comes down to whether people think deterrence works.
Arthur, the former immigration court judge, thinks it does. He said changes to the credible fear asylum standards and restrictions on the use of humanitarian parole would be a “game changer.” But others, like Schmidt, say migrants are so desperate, they will come anyway and make dangerous journeys to evade Border Patrol.
“Desperate people do desperate things,” he said.
—REBECCA SANTANA, ASSOCIATED
PRESS