The decision to grant asylum in the United States was transferred under the jurisdiction of USCIS: this will speed up the procedure, but reduce the chances of some asylum seekers

The Biden administration announced on March 24 that it had finalized rules that would change the asylum process along the southern border. CBS.

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Although federal officials have said the plan will initially be implemented on a small scale starting in late spring.

The long-awaited rule will accelerate the government's ability to provide asylum to those fleeing persecution and deport those who are not eligible for U.S. protection. Officials hope these changes will discourage migrants who are not eligible for asylum but are looking for better economic opportunities from crossing the border illegally.

A key operational change will be allowing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees to approve or deny U.S. asylum requests from migrants who pass the initial interview, rather than taking those claims to national immigration courts, which have a backlog of more than 1,7 million cases. .

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US law allows officials to grant asylum to migrants who prove they could be persecuted if deported because of their race, nationality, politics, religion, or social group membership. But because of the huge backlog, asylum seekers wait years before their requests are heard and resolved.

Government officials said these lengthy decision periods, which can be extended through appeals, encourage migrants fleeing economic hardship to use the asylum system to stay and work in the US indefinitely. Delays also hurt asylum seekers with well-founded claims, officials say, trapping them in years of legal uncertainty.

The rule changes, due to come into effect in just over two months, aim to cut asylum processing times from a few years to 90 days, Biden administration officials said in a briefing with reporters.

“The current system for processing asylum claims at our borders is long overdue for change,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “With this rule, we are creating a more robust and smarter asylum system to ensure that those who are eligible receive protection more quickly and those who are not are quickly removed.”

Administration officials said they expect the key changes to begin in late May or early June, but noted that the agencies are still debating where along the southern border the plan will be presented and which migrants will be initially processed under the new procedures.

“In this new system, there will be a very careful, slow ramp-up of cases,” a senior administration official told reporters. “We do not expect many people to be involved in this process in the first weeks and months as we ensure the process functions as we expect.”
The ruling will apply to migrants in U.S. custody who are subject to the so-called “expedited removal” procedure, a procedure created in 1996 that allows authorities to deport people who have recently crossed the border without legal proceedings, unless they express concerns. that they will be harmed in their country. They need to prove that their concerns are credible.

Single adult migrants and families traveling with children may be subject to expedited removal, but US law prohibits authorities from applying this policy to unaccompanied minors.

If migrants express a fear of persecution, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officers have 30 days to interview them to determine whether the concerns are credible. If migrants do not pass these interviews, they can be quickly deported unless they apply to an immigration judge to reconsider their application. Judges will then have seven days to either uphold or overturn the asylum officer's decision.

If migrants confirm a credible fear of persecution, they will be scheduled for a more detailed interview with an asylum officer 21-45 days after the initial screening decision is made. During this process, asylum seekers may be detained or outside the U.S. detention area, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official.

Asylum officers will have 60 days after this interview to deny or grant asylum to migrants. Migrants granted asylum may remain in the US indefinitely and are eligible for permanent residence one year after the decision is made.

If the migrant's asylum application is denied at this stage, the migrant's case will be referred to the DOJ Immigration Courts, which will hold adversarial hearings. Judges will then be tasked with deciding within 90 days whether the migrant should be deported or allowed to stay because he is entitled to humanitarian assistance.

Timelines are significantly shorter than in regular immigration courts, officials say, as judges will receive all documents previously reviewed by asylum officers, including interview transcripts. Speeding up this schedule would also help to clear the backlog of court cases.

“The judges will not be starting from scratch,” said a senior Justice Department official. “They will receive these cases from USCIS with quite a bit of information.”

In addition to asylum, immigration judges may grant lesser forms of protection, known as denial of removal and United Nations Convention against Torture protection, to eligible migrants fleeing persecution or torture. Unlike asylum, these remedies do not confer permanent status on beneficiaries.

Those who have been given a deportation decision can appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals and then, if necessary, to federal district court. But it could take years to consider these appeals. Once migrants receive final deportation orders, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can arrest and deport them.

During a March 23 briefing, administration officials acknowledged that the USCIS Asylum Division, which is already reviewing more than 432 pending applications, does not have sufficient resources or staff to implement the new procedures on a large scale immediately.

The ambitious policy also faces other challenges and unresolved questions, such as whether migrants will be detained during legal proceedings, and if so, where.

The administration is considering setting up campus-like processing centers to screen asylum seekers in more humane conditions, people familiar with the discussion said. Such facilities have not yet been built.

The detention of asylum seekers being considered under the new rule could also spark outrage among progressive advocates who denounce the detention of immigrants. Conversely, Republican lawmakers are likely to criticize the release of migrants into US communities.

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It is also unclear whether the current pandemic-era border policy, which calls for the expulsion of most migrants on public health grounds, will be in place when the new asylum rules come into effect. Under Trump-era policies known as Section 42, U.S. border officials have expelled migrants more than 2020 million times since March 1,7, preventing them from seeking asylum.

If the recent court decision is upheld, Section 42 may be reduced or terminated starting in April. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which authorizes Section 42, must decide by March 30 whether to keep the policy.

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