This morning, President Biden announced new policies that would severely limit the rights of immigrants who cross the southern border to seek asylum. reason Immigration writer Fiona Harrigan provides a useful summary of the provisions.
“The entry of non-citizens crossing the southern border into the United States is hereby suspended and restricted,” Biden’s order said. If border encounters between ports of entry reach an average of 2,500 per day over a seven-day period, migrants will no longer be able to apply for asylum unless they qualify for a limited exception or request a port of entry appointment through the app. It was a flawed and cumbersome process). The restrictions will be lifted after two weeks when the number of daily encounters between ports of entry falls below 1,500 on average over a seven-day period.
The policy includes exceptions for unaccompanied minors and immigrants who are admitted by CBP officers based on consideration of the totality of the circumstances, including consideration of critical law enforcement, police, and public safety, emergency humanitarian, and public health interests at the time of the incident. . “An entry or encounter permitting the entry of a non-citizen.”
But the new policy would bar nearly all immigrants from seeking asylum, including those fleeing the kind of violence and persecution for which asylum is supposed to protect.
It's worth noting that Biden already adopted highly restrictive “Trump-level” asylum policies last year, prompting federal courts to file legal challenges opposing them. Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California noted in the plain text of the 1980 Refugee Act that “all non-citizens arriving in the United States 'whether or not at a designated port of arrival' and 'regardless of whether [their] If you have status, you can apply for asylum.'” Similar (but more restrictive) policies have been struck down by courts under the Trump administration, including in a decision written by prominent conservative judge Jay Bybee.
Judge Tigar's ruling was stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which has not yet issued a final decision on the case. This new policy is also likely to be challenged, and it is likely that it too will be struck down in court. The text of the 1980 Refugee Act is clear, and Biden's policy clearly violates it.
My Cato Institute colleague David Bier explains why this policy is harmful, counterproductive, and possibly illegal.
Biden's order goes into effect when Border Patrol apprehensions exceed 2,500 per day (which they currently do) and expires only if apprehensions fall below 1,500 per day for two consecutive weeks. From fiscal year 2019 to 2024, DHS reached its goal of 1,500 cases per day in 11 months, with the exception of only one in fiscal year 2020. The Biden administration has never met this standard.
Despite a pandemic, a locked-down economy, and the most assertive administration, not even the Trump administration met this standard in August, September, October, November, or December 2020. To achieve this goal, we must reduce arrest rates by 60 percent…
Executive orders don't work. Biden has already attempted an outright ban on asylum. This is a much stricter version of the health law known as Title 42. Title 42 was applied most strictly to adults traveling without children in Mexico and northern Central America. During its implementation, Title 42 almost immediately resulted in higher arrests of this population. This increase occurred primarily because deported people often attempted to re-cross the border, leading to more arrests…
Biden is requiring all asylum seekers to apply for asylum at a U.S. port of entry, but his order also requires them to make an appointment three weeks in advance while in Mexico using a cellphone app called CBP One. He also limited the number of daily appointments to 1,450. Therefore, Biden is effectively banning approximately 4,000 people a day from applying for asylum, but is not opening any additional legal ways for them to seek asylum. This new rule does not allow a single additional person to legally enter. This will derail all efforts as people will continue to enter the country illegally…
When the order is valid for refusal [asylum to] As more people cross illegally, more people will try to avoid detection rather than enter the country illegally and seek asylum. Evasion means more trespassing on private property, more car chases with smugglers, more confrontations between Border Patrol agents and migrants…
These measures will only lead to more deaths among immigrants who think the only way to enter the country is to evade Border Patrol — by hiding in the desert, swimming in the Rio Grande, or sneaking into the back of a tractor trailer. In the big picture, President Biden should not ignore American law. He shouldn't try to stop people from coming to America. Instead, we should strive to ensure that they enter this country legally and orderly so they can contribute. America is a great country and people want to join it. That's a good thing. We must allow them to do so legally.
As Bier and I explained in November USA Today According to the article, if Biden really wants to reduce disorder at the border, the best way to do it would be to expand on his previous plan to make legal entry easier, which was marred by arbitrary limits and bureaucratic hurdles. Federal and state governments could also improve the situation by providing immediate work permits to asylum seekers and reducing zoning rules that make it difficult to build new housing on demand.
Such policies would help immigrants escape terrible oppression and poverty, boost the American economy by allowing immigrants to contribute more to the American economy, and reduce chaos at the border. Even if the legal challenges are overcome, Biden's new asylum policy is unlikely to achieve these goals and could make the situation even worse for reasons pointed out by David Bier.
Of course, Biden's main goal is probably to help himself politically in an election year rather than improving policy or complying with the law. Let's see if that political objective is achieved. I'm skeptical he'll get much strength from it. Public opinion on the border issue is influenced more by perceptions of disorder than by policy details (most voters, especially relatively inattentive swing voters, know little about them). But I could be wrong. The political strategists in the White House may have a better grasp of political dynamics than I do. Perhaps the show of strength will pay political dividends, regardless of the actual impact on the field. Time will tell.
Biden's overall immigration policy is still much better than Trump's and deserves credit for various improvements. But he is also reprehensible for adopting a Trump-style cruel asylum policy to score political points.