Critics warn Biden Is ‘finishing Trump’s job’ with new attack on asylum-seekers
U.S. President Joe Biden’s newly unveiled plan to crack down on asylum-seekers, which his administration is expected to implement following the scheduled expiration of the pandemic-era Title 42 policy on Thursday, is being denounced for entrenching a bipartisan abandonment of international human rights law.
“This asylum ‘plan’ from the Biden administration is a disaster,” Sawyer Hackett, an adviser to Rep. Julian Castro (D-Texas), wrote Wednesday on social media. “It slams the door on our commitment to asylum as an internationally recognized principle. In many ways, it’s worse than Title 42 and anything Trump proposed around asylum.”
Title 42 was enacted by former President Donald Trump early in the Covid-19 pandemic at the behest of his notorious white nationalist adviser, Stephen Miller. Despite widespread condemnation from human rights experts, who accused Biden of following Trump in weaponizing the rarely used public health statute to swiftly deport immigrants, the current president has failed to fundamentally break from his predecessor’s policy of fast-tracking the expulsion of asylum-seekers.
The Biden administration initially defended Title 42 and continued to expand the policy after its attempts to end it were thwarted by Trump-appointed judges. With Title 42 scheduled to expire alongside the Covid-19 public health emergency on May 11, the White House in February proposed a set of anti-asylum measures consistent with those it inherited.
CBS News on Tuesday obtained internal documents showing that the new restrictions had been finalized and hundreds of U.S. asylum officers trained on how to enforce them. The policy was formally published on Wednesday.
“The long-awaited end of Title 42 should be a cause for celebration and relief; and we welcome the end of a policy that was based in cruelty and persecution,” Danilo Zak, associate director of policy and advocacy at Church World Service, said in a statement. “However, the immediate implementation of an asylum ban on the same day it is set to end represents an unwillingness to move away from punitive, fear-based border policy and towards humane solutions that would effectively and compassionately manage the border.”
“This ban and other proposed border policy changes will place further restrictions on asylum, while increasing detention, deportation, and militarization at the border,” said Zak. “It will embrace disorder, returning at-risk migrants to danger, and do nothing to address the challenges we face. With every step forward, the Biden administration is choosing to immediately take two steps back; the legacy being created is one of negligence and harm. One that directly undermines the values of so many Americans.”
As CBS News reported:
Under the rule, migrants who cross the southern border without authorization will be presumed to be ineligible for asylum if they can’t prove they previously requested protection in a third country. In practice, it will disqualify most non-Mexican migrants who enter the U.S. between ports of entry from asylum.
Migrants who secure an appointment to enter the U.S. under a mobile app-powered system will not be barred from asylum under the policy. The rule will also not apply to unaccompanied children.
According to internal training documents, only migrants with “exceptionally compelling circumstances” will be able to overcome the rule’s asylum bar. Those include migrants with an “acute medical emergency,” those who face an “imminent and extreme threat” in Mexico, and victims of “a severe form of human trafficking.”
In order to avoid being deported and banished from the U.S. for five years, those who don’t qualify for any exemption will need to pass interviews with heightened standards designed to lead to more rejections than traditional “credible fear” interviews, according to the training materials.
Biden’s new policy is expected to be challenged in federal court. “We will sue as we did under Trump,” Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s top immigration lawyer, told CBS News on Tuesday. “The core illegality is the same.”
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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