Biden launches migration order aimed at ending asylum requests, after months of anticipation

WASHINGTON – WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden on Tuesday revealed plans to enact significant immediate restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the White House seeks to defuse immigration as a political liability before the November elections.

The White House detailed the long-awaited presidential proclamation signed by Biden, which would prevent migrants from being granted asylum when US authorities deem that the southern border is overloaded. The Democratic president has contemplated unilateral action for months, especially after the collapse of a bipartisan border security agreement in Congress that most Republican lawmakers rejected at the behest of Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential candidate of the Republican Party.

The order will take effect when the number of border encounters between ports of entry reaches 2,500 per day, according to senior government officials. This means Biden’s order should take effect immediately because this number is higher than current daily averages. The restrictions would take effect no later than two weeks after the number of daily encounters is at or below 1,500 per day between ports of entry, below a seven-day average. These numbers were first reported by the Associated Press on Monday.

Once this order goes into effect, migrants who arrive at the border but do not express fear of returning to their home countries will be subject to immediate removal from the United States, within a matter of days or even hours. These migrants would face punishments that could include a five-year ban on re-entering the US, as well as possible criminal prosecution.

However, anyone who expresses this fear or intention to seek asylum will be screened by a US asylum officer, but to a higher standard than currently used. If they pass the screening, they can seek more limited forms of humanitarian protection, including the United Nations Convention against Torture.

Biden’s order was detailed by four senior administration officials who insisted on anonymity to describe the effort to reporters. The directive comes at a time when the number of migrants encountered at the border has seen a consistent decline since December, but even so, senior administration officials justified the order by arguing that the numbers are still too high and that the numbers could increase with better conditions. weather conditions, when the number of encounters traditionally increases.

However, many questions and complications remain about how Biden’s new directive would be implemented.

For example, the Biden administration has already an agreement with Mexico in which Mexico agrees to accept up to 30,000 citizens per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela once they are denied entry from the US, and senior administration officials say this will continue under this order. But it’s unclear what happens to citizens of other countries who are denied access by Biden’s directive.

Senior officials also acknowledged that the administration’s goal of quickly deporting migrants is complicated by insufficient congressional funding to do so. The administration also faces certain legal restrictions when it comes to detaining migrant families, although the administration has stated that it would continue to meet these obligations.

The legal authority invoked by Biden is under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows a president to limit entries of certain migrants if doing so is considered “harmful” to the national interest. Senior officials expressed confidence that they would be able to implement Biden’s order, despite threats from prominent legal groups to sue the administration over the directive.

“We intend to sue,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who has successfully defended similar legal challenges under Trump. “The asylum ban is illegal just as it was when Trump unsuccessfully tried.”

Senior administration officials have insisted that Biden’s proposal differs dramatically from the Trump’swhich drew on the same provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Biden is using, including his 2017 directive to bar citizens from Muslim-majority nations and his efforts in 2018 to crack down on asylum.

For example, Biden’s order outlines several groups of migrants who would be exempt on humanitarian grounds, including victims of human trafficking, unaccompanied minors and those with serious medical emergencies.

Trump said Tuesday on his social media account that Biden had “fully surrendered our southern border” and that the order was “all for show” before his June 27 presidential debate.

The directive would also exempt migrants who arrive in what senior officials call an orderly manner, which includes people who arrange meetings with border officials at ports of entry using the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app. Around 1,450 appointments are made per day through the application, launched last year.

Immigration advocates feared Biden’s plan would only add to a months-long backlog of migrants waiting for an appointment through the application, especially when immigration officials don’t have an accompanying funding boost.

It could also be difficult for border authorities to implement the plan to quickly remove migrants when many agents are already tasked with helping with shelters and other humanitarian tasks, said Jennie Murray, president of the National Immigration Forum.

“Customs and Border Protection cannot keep up with apprehensions as they are now because they do not have enough staff, which would cause more disorder,” she said.

The daily average of arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico was below 2,500 in January 2021, the month Biden took office. The last time border encounters fell to 1,500 per day was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Congressional Republicans dismissed Biden’s order as nothing more than a “political stunt” intended to showcase stricter immigration enforcement ahead of the election.

“He has tried to convince all of us all this time that there is no way to fix the mess,” GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference. “Remember he designed this.”

Biden said in January that he “did everything he could” to control the border through his executive authority, but White House officials nonetheless telegraphed for months that the president would consider unilateral action. Democrats note that Biden waited months in hopes of legislation rather than acting on his own, which could easily be reversed by his successor.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the legislation would have been more effective, but “Republican intransigence forced the president’s hand.”

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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.