Biden Administration to ‘Pause’ Radical Asylum Officer Rule
That’s good, but the president should return to Congress’ rules, which worked in the past and will in the future
By Andrew R. Arthur on April 15, 2023
On April 12, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Biden administration is pausing its “so-called asylum processing rule”, implemented last May and pursuant to which asylum officers — not just immigration judges as had been the case for the prior 25 years — are empowered to adjudicate asylum applications filed by apprehended border migrants. The rule is being paused as the administration gears up for a post-Title 42 onslaught of illegal entrants over the Southwest border, but the president should simply shelve the radical idea entirely, and return to the rules Congress wrote. They worked in the past, and will in the future, too.
Expedited Removal and Credible Fear. That rule is a transmogrification of “expedited removal”, a plan Congress mapped out in 1996 to curb asylum abuses and facilitate the removal of illegal entrants and other aliens who lacked proper documents to enter the United States. Those 1996 amendments allowed immigration officers at the ports and Border Patrol agents between the ports to quickly remove such aliens without sending them to immigration court.
Under those amendments, aliens subject to expedited removal who request asylum or claim they will be harmed upon return are to be sent to asylum officers (AOs) for interviews to determine whether they have a “credible fear” of persecution.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Biden-Administration-Pause-Radical-Asylum-Officer-Rule
