The Biden administration’s latest clamp-down on immigrant asylum is less about border security and managing immigration than it is a sign of the nation’s continuing moral decline, immigration advocate Marisa Limon Garza said.
“It’s an attempt to cater to the politics of racists and white supremacists. These policies are a threat to the most vulnerable, including women, children, LGBTQ folks and Black and indigenous persons seeking protection, as well as our borderland communities,” said Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso.
Marisa Limon Garza
Garza was one of several immigration and border experts who participated in a June 6 press briefing called to condemn the president’s recent executive order denying asylum access to migrants who are caught entering the U.S. without authorization.
Biden’s June 4 directive allows border agents to rapidly expel or deport asylum seekers without screenings when migrant apprehensions exceed 2,500 per day. Asylum access is restored when those incursions decline to 1,500 a day for a full week. The rule went into effect June 5, the White House announced.
But with average daily encounters currently exceeding 2,500, activists are concerned the closure will stretch on indefinitely, said Azadeh Erfani, senior policy analyst with the National Immigration Center. “This is a very low threshold. It’s basically already a trigger for the shutdown that we are seeing under this rule.”
Worries about the length of the shutdown were supported in a report by Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas, which found migrant encounters have not dropped below 1,500 since July 2020 — the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — and have been below that level in only 58% of all months since 2000.
“Even then, the ‘asylum shutdown’ would resume should the daily average again exceed 2,500 per day,:” Erfani said. “It is over 3,500 per day right now; in fact, the U.S.-Mexico border has crossed that threshold in 110 of the past 296 months: 37% of this century.”
Biden has been adamant Congressional inaction has forced him to this and other drastic measures which he said are intended to help alleviate pressure on an overburdened and backlogged asylum system.
“The status quo system — the result of outdated laws and inadequate resources — has become a driver for unlawful migration throughout the region and an increasingly lucrative source of income for dangerous transnational criminal organizations and other criminal smuggling organizations that, without countermeasures, will continue to grow in strength and pose significant threats to the safety and security of United States communities and migrants, as well as countries throughout the region,” he said in the order.
“Considering these trends and the decades-long failure of the Congress to address the problem through systemic reform and adequate funding, and following the Congress’ failure to pass the bipartisan legislative proposal, I must exercise my executive authorities to meet the moment.”
But Erfani and other activists on the briefing disputed the president’s assertion he is acting to protect migrants from the myriad dangers they face enroute to the U.S.
Erfani noted a bipartisan immigration reform bill defeated in Congress earlier this year would have granted the president authority to deport migrants if daily encounters reached 5,000 over seven days or exceeded 8,500 on a single day.
“That number was actually set to 5,000 instead of 2,500. Since then, encounters have actually gotten lower. So why 2,500 now? That number is engineered to shut down asylum access immediately,” she said.
It’s just as troubling that migrants apprehended on the U.S. side of the border are now required to express a fear of being returned to their home countries without first being asked by border agents, as was the previous policy, she added.
“This is a deeply, deeply alarming change to policy because it is well documented that people who flee governmental persecution or flee persecution after their governments failed to protect them are highly unlikely to volunteer information about their fear when they encountered armed, uniformed officials.”
Chelsea Sachau
Another built-in failure in the president’s order is the additional pressure it will place on the CBP One app migrants are required to use to apply for appointments at ports of entry, said Chelsea Sachau, managing attorney for the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project’s border action team.
Part of a previous Biden action, the smartphone application is notoriously glitchy, slow, available only in select languages and requires migrants to have phones and Wi-Fi access in deplorable conditions. And with only 1,450 appointments available per day, it leaves untold thousands stuck in cartel-ridden communities in Mexico.
“At this point in time, my clients are reporting that they have had to wait anywhere from seven to eight months for an appointment, but potentially longer. We recently spoke with someone who had been trying for an appointment every day for a year,” Sachau said.
Lindsay Toczylowski
Biden’s latest order will cause higher numbers to wait in Mexico and to rely on the app, she added. “That’s why this rule is also a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the administration has continuously touted the CBP One app or other new policies as a way to take power back from transnational criminal organizations involved with migrants smuggling. But the reality is every rule just creates more and more delays, and more and more chaos and complications that the criminal organizations use to prey upon my clients.”
The new policy also is disturbing because it nearly eliminates access to legal representation for migrants detained at the border, said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in San Diego.
Asylum seekers are now given four hours to find, contact and speak with an attorney, instead of the 24 hours migrants once were given, she said. “This program, by design, is to make sure people do not have access to lawyers, and the lack of information sharing by government with lawyers shows the intention of the Biden administration is to deny people access to due process.”
But Richard Caldarone, senior litigation attorney for the National Immigration Justice Center, vowed his organization, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and the American Civil Liberties Union will sue to stop the order. “And given that the rule leaves thousands of people immediately in situations of severe danger, we will be doing so as quickly as possible.”
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