President Biden’s latest bid to streamline the asylum process for migrants arriving in the US has been slammed as unworkable by both pro-immigration lawyers and border enforcement officials — the latest setback for the White House on an issue that has vexed Biden since taking office last year.
The pilot program, which has been trialed since May, lets asylum officers — rather than immigration judges — determine whether a migrant has a case to stay in America.
The program aims to shrink the wait time for asylum decisions from years to as little as 90 days.
However, advocates complain that doesn’t leave enough time for applicants to hire a lawyer and build their case, while critics note that an adverse decision can be appealed, leaving applicants stuck in backlogged immigration courts that are almost two million cases behind.
“This program is going to fail no matter what because even if an asylum officer finds that they don’t have a claim to asylum, then the people get to appeal it,” Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council, told The Post.
“Why are we even setting up this step? Now, all we’re doing is prolonging the process because every single person is going to appeal it. This is a stupid rule. It makes absolutely no sense,” Judd added.
Data from the pilot program shows that of the 100 asylum seekers who have gone through the shorter process, 24 have been granted asylum. That tracks closely with the regular asylum process, in which the denial rate is 73% nationwide, according to Tran Flores, who practices immigration law in Round Rock, Texas.
Flores told The Post although there are several different asylum tracks, in general, waiting times for a final decision are “definitely years.”
“I’ve had clients where we had an interview scheduled and prepped for trial [then] three days before the hearing, we were told it’s rescheduled,” she recalled.
The pilot program is currently only in use at two locations, the South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, and a Houston immigration center.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded a record two million encounters with people crossing the border in the most recent fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
Texas cities such as El Paso, Del Rio, and Eagle Pass have said they are overwhelmed with migrants flooding over the border by the thousands each day and have received little federal support.
The majority of asylum seekers arriving at the border and fueling the crisis are coming from Latin American countries like Venezuela and Cuba.
Most of the asylum-seekers cross the border into the US illegally and are coached to turn themselves into the Border Patrol, along with what to tell officers.
Judd explained how Border Patrol starts the deportation process as soon as people are apprehended.
“That’s when they say, ‘I fear going back to my country,'” Judd said. “The moment they say that we have to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE].”
The potential asylum seeker is then sat down for a so-called “credible fear” interview within 48 hours to assess the validity of their application.
If they are accepted, in the regular system, an immigration judge will then decide their case, although the matter could take years to come to court — especially with the current backlog of around two million applications.
In the new system launched by Biden, once the migrants have passed their initial interview, they undergo a second “asylum merit interview” within 45 days, conducted by a specially trained officer who works for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
At the merit interview, the asylum officer decides whether the applicant qualifies for asylum.
“From start to finish, the asylum officer has to issue a decision within 60 days of that person receiving the ‘credible fear’ determination. It’s much, much faster,” said Flores.
If the applicant is approved, they are immediately granted one year of asylum status, which includes the ability to work and opens the door for them to apply for citizenship further down the road.
If the asylum claim is denied, an automatic review of the case is triggered and the case is moved to an immigration judge. However, even if the judge denies the asylum claim, the applicant has the opportunity to appeal that ruling.
But lawyers are worried the new process moves too fast, and that many asylum seekers won’t have the opportunity to organize proper legal representation.
“People are not able to get immigration attorneys to represent them,” said Carolina Rivera, an attorney with Catholic Charities in Dallas.
“Then if you don’t have an attorney to represent you in a complicated process like asylum it is very, very hard to win an asylum case.”
“We understand the Administration’s purpose in this; they really are trying to give some relief to the immigration courts,” Flores said. “But that’s almost overridden by the extreme concern that they don’t give people an opportunity to get counsel.”
