Biden Asylum Rule Does Nothing to Fix Root Causes of Border Crisis
FAIR Take | February 2023
This week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a joint proposed rule entitled “Circumvention of Legal Pathways” to amend the asylum process for people who enter the country illegally or through our ports of entry.
For once, the Biden administration recognizes that an insecure border is draining resources on taxpayers, though not that the border crisis was manufactured and deliberately created by President Biden’s open border policies.
According to the rule, “DHS operations are subject to significant resource and capacity constraints” and “the impact has been particularly acute in certain border sectors.” The rule further points out that increased encounters of illegal immigrants at the southern border places additional pressure on states, local communities, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), both at the border and in the interior of the country.
In a remarkable admission, DHS even concedes that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens pouring across the border are attempting to defraud our political asylum system – a crisis about to get a whole lot worse when Title 42 is canceled, with an estimated 11,000-13,000 illegal immigrants expected to be encountered every day.
But will the rule really help fend off surges and frivolous asylum claims?
In plain terms, the rule prohibits aliens from applying for asylum if they have traveled through several safe countries without seeking asylum before arriving in the United States.
More specifically, it creates a rebuttable presumption that a person is ineligible for asylum in the United States if they enter without proper documentation. That presumption would not apply to illegal immigrants if: 1) the alien sought asylum or other protection in a country through which they traveled and received a final decision denying the application; 2) the alien applied and was approved to travel to the United States through a DHS-approved parole process; 3) used the CBP mobile app and presented at the point of entry at a scheduled time – or demonstrated that the mechanism for scheduling was not possible to access or use.
The Biden administration claims that the rule “would encourage migrants to avail themselves of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States, or otherwise to seek asylum or other protection in countries through which they travel, thereby reducing reliance on human smuggling networks that exploit migrants for financial gain.” In reality, however, the rule just encourages aliens to use the illegal parole process created in January of this year while at the same time allowing for surreptitiously processing asylum claimants through the CBP One app. The only real restriction the rule places on asylum-seekers, the overwhelming majority of whom are unfounded or false claims, is that they must now make an appointment, using an official mobile app, to claim asylum at a port of entry.
Americans won’t be fooled. The real objective of this proposed rule is not to enact border security measures or end asylum abuse, but to get President Biden and his Democrat allies through to the next election cycle.
Under the rule, nearly all aliens will be waved into the United States simply by using the CBP One app, where they will be allowed to live and work for years if they are fleeing “economic and political instability,” neither of which are legitimate grounds for asylum. And even after their asylum claims are denied, nearly all will remain.
This is not a serious attempt to end massive asylum abuse. It is rather a seriously misguided, politically motivated attempt to remove the horrible optics of a border crisis that the Biden administration itself created. What we need is real reform, not more political maneuvering from a political class out of touch with middle America and wholly uninterested in their concerns.