New asylum measures undercut by budget
Biden instructions meant to deliver more scrutiny having little impact
Inside giant white tents that house about 1,000 migrants near Tucson International Airport, Border Patrol agents demonstrate clockwork efficiency to release detainees within two days of arrest with orders to appear in immigration courts at their final destinations. Agents transmit information from the field to colleagues who prepare court papers while migrants are bused hours away to a processing center, minimizing time in custody.
Notably missing from the operations hub in the busiest corridor for illegal crossings into the U.S. are asylum officers who do initial screenings, which are intended to weed out weak claims that don’t meet narrowly prescribed grounds for seeking protection, such as race, religion and political opinion.
Asylum officers were instructed nearly a year ago to apply a higher screening standard on those who cross the border illegally after passing though another country, such as Mexico, but they are too understaffed to have much impact. The Biden administration hails the higher standard as a cornerstone of its border policy in legal challenges, but its application in only a small percentage of arrests shows how budgets can fail to match ambitions.
Strained budgets continue to loom large as the White House again considers sweeping measures to limit asylum at the border.
The failure of a $20 billion spending plan on border security this month has caused the administration to assess its priorities. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, facing a $700 million hole this year, is considering cutting the number of detention beds from 38,000 to 22,000 and facilitating fewer deportation flights. These possible steps were first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed to The Associated Press by a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The failed spending package crafted by Senate negotiators would have given $4 billion to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, including to add 4,338 asylum officers to screen applicants and make final decisions on claims — more than four times current staffing.
Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico plunged to the second-lowest monthly rate of Joe Biden’s presidency, a month after the higher standard replaced coronavirus pandemic-related asylum restrictions. The rule “is working as intended and has already significantly reduced encounters at the border,” Blas Nuñez-Neto, assistant homeland security secretary for border and immigration policy, said in a court filing at the time.
Asylum-seekers subject to tougher screenings had a 59% pass rate through September, down from 85% in the five years before the pandemic, Nuñez-Neto said in another court filing.
While that suggests the policy has made a difference, its scope has been limited. Officers interviewed only 57,700 migrants under the new rule through September, according to Nuñez-Neto. That represents only about 15% of the nearly 365,500 migrants released by Border Patrol from June to September with notices to appear in immigration court.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to provide more recent numbers. It insists the higher screening standard is working as intended, while acknowledging it has failed to keep pace with unprecedented migration flows and calling on Congress to adequately fund the efforts.