Changes to speed process of rejecting asylum seekers who have criminal records
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is proposing changes in the asylum process that will allow immigration officials to reject migrants with criminal records sooner.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday revealed details of the proposed new rule, which would allow asylum officers to deny claims of migrants who have been convicted of a serious crime, are linked to terrorism or pose other dangers to public safety.
Under current law, a migrant who arrives at the border and undergoes an initial “credible fear” screening is allowed to continue with the process even if they have a criminal background. They are detained, but processing such cases can take years.
Under the proposed regulation, the rejections could instead take place in days, DHS said.
A DHS official on a call with reporters declined to offer an estimate of how many asylum seekers could be rejected under the proposal.
“We don’t think that the rule will apply to large numbers of people, but it will apply to the people that we are most concerned about,” said the official, who requested anonymity as a condition of the call.
Individuals “who pose a national security or public safety risk” would be subject to the new rule, “specifically those who have been convicted of a particularly serious crime, participated in the persecution of others, are inadmissible on national security or terrorism-related grounds, or for whom there are reasonable grounds to deem them a danger to the security of the United States,” according to a DHS statement.
Immigration experts say asylum eligibility is complicated and questioned whether migrants applying for asylum will have access to legal representation that early in the process.
“The main issue here – which we have found repeatedly – is that when cases move quickly, people can’t get attorneys,” said Austin Kocher, assistant professor at Syracuse University who studies federal immigration enforcement.
“An attorney might be able, on the client’s behalf, to make interventions and provide some balance. But the way the policy is being proposed, they want to move this part of the process so fast, it’s going to be almost impossible for people to get attorneys,” Kocher said.
President Joe Biden has toughened his approach to border security in recent months as immigration has emerged as a top concern among voters.
Biden has been considering new executive actions to crack down on record migration at the southern border after congressional Republicans in February blocked border legislation backed by the White House.
“Congress hasn’t done anything meaningful on immigration in the lifetimes of most migrants,” Kocher said. “I can completely understand why the Biden campaign and the president himself would want to show they’re doing things to make it tougher at the border to balance out what is an extremely hard-line position from the other side.”
Contributing: Reuters