Embattled Biden Administration Finally Figures Out Asylum Can’t Be a Free-for-All

2023 is shaping up to be another year of worsts for the crisis on the southern border. For this, America can thank the Biden administration’s systemic work to dismantle our physical and legal barriers against uncontrolled humanitarian catastrophe. Title 42’s end, however, might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. This pandemic-era public health rule is winding up after lawsuits against it by open-borders groups who demand even greater chaos, and the administration has been scrambling to find a stopgap. Now it seems they might have found one and, surprisingly, it’s what was most successful for the last president.

In order to maintain the (unacceptable) status quo at the border, the Biden administration is considering reviving measures from the previous administration that would limit access to asylum. These policies are both relatively mild and completely consistent with both American and international law. They would keep migrants who have passed through third countries from applying for asylum in the United States unless the migrants could demonstrate that they had applied for asylum in those third countries and been rejected. For example, a Honduran at the southern border would have to demonstrate they had been rejected from asylum in Guatemala and Mexico, two third countries that would be able to protect an individual from the Honduran government’s persecution just as well as America can.

Asylum is a status that can be granted to individuals who are persecuted by their home country’s government based on characteristics defined under law. It is not available to economic migrants. This status is intended for individuals who are in grave danger in their home country and one would assume that such persecuted individuals would take the first safe haven available.

The reality is exactly the opposite. Tens of thousands of individuals from across the globe routinely travel thousands of miles over land in the Americas, often crossing through seven or more countries, to reach the American border and claim asylum. Latin American migrants, in particular, often transit through safe third countries like Mexico and Colombia that share their language and offer generous asylum procedures without filing a claim. After all, jobs there are much less lucrative than in the United States, and they can count on the Biden administration to let them remain in the country and take advantage of work authorization while their cases proceed through the court system at a snail’s pace.

No policy is perfect, and many firsthand accounts of the border have shown that migrants routinely discard evidence of the asylum that other countries have granted because of the better opportunities that the U.S. offers. Nevertheless, being realistic about the true motives for many asylum claims (which are, even under Biden, mostly denied) is a good first step. America will need many more reforms before our asylum system is working as intended, serving the truly persecuted rather than the greedy.