The Biden administration officially unveiled its latest executive action on border security and immigration on Thursday, emphasizing the asylum rule’s focus on “national security and public safety.”
The proposed rule, which was widely reported the day before it was released, would allow asylum officers to determine whether an asylum seeker poses a threat at an earlier stage in the process.
The first step to applying for asylum is a credible fear interview, where a migrant must declare fear of persecution if repatriated – this is when the new rule will allow agents to check national security and criminal justice data to determine whether an individual presents a threat.
These reviews are currently carried out at a later stage in the process, a formal asylum interview that delves into each migrant’s eligibility for protection.
“The proposed rule we published today is another step in our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of the American public by more quickly identifying and removing those individuals who pose a security risk and have no legal basis to remain here,” said Secretary of Internal security. Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
“We will continue to act, but fundamentally only Congress can fix what everyone agrees is a broken immigration system.”
The new rule will be formally introduced on Monday and will then go through a comment process.
Officials said the rule would apply to a limited number of migrants, but did not specify a number or an estimate of how many people would be affected.
“I just want to note that while the population may be limited, they are the individuals that we are most concerned about from a public safety and national security standpoint,” a senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told reporters. in a phone call on Thursday. .
“I will say that this is really intended to be a national security and public safety measure. And so it is intended to ensure that, once again, the individuals that we are most concerned about that we find – people with serious criminal records or ties to the terrorism – can be removed as early in the process as possible.”
The official said asylum officers who conduct credible fear screenings would not see a significant increase in workload because of the rule.
“What this rule will do is allow them, when we have clear information that obviously disqualifies someone from obtaining asylum or preventing removal because they are a threat to national security or public safety, to consider that information as early in the process as possible,” they said. they said.
In parallel with the new rule, DHS will update its policy on the use of classified information in immigration proceedings, presumably to better detect threats to national security.
The rule comes amid heightened rhetoric from Republicans about alleged threats posed by foreign nationals to both national security and public safety.
No one in the United States has ever been killed in a terrorist act committed by someone who illegally crossed the US-Mexico border, and several studies have revealed lower crime rates among immigrants than among native-born US citizens.
Officials did not address whether potential asylum seekers labeled as potential threats by immigration agents would have any legal recourse to challenge that determination.
“The rule is particularly dangerous for people fleeing persecution that may involve arrest or unsubstantiated allegations by their government. The asylum officer under this rule can quickly deport them without any opportunity to explain that the arrest was in fact part of persecution they fled,” said Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center.
People in immigration proceedings are not entitled to legal advice, but they can obtain representation. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a government data tracker located at Syracuse University, only about 30% of immigrants in proceedings had legal representation as of December.
DHS officials did not immediately respond to a question about whether due process safeguards were included in the rule.
—Updated at 5:04 p.m.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
