New Rules For Asylum Seekers To Take Place In JUST Days!

Specifically, the new asylum rules dictate that asylum seekers must first apply for asylum in countries they enter before doing so in America - a decision by President Trump that has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Reuters gave a a thorough explanation of the new asylum rules and their intended effect:

Immigration is central to U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda and the government has said the new rule will reduce fraudulent asylum claims, while immigrant advocates say it risks returning vulnerable migrants to danger and even death.  

The legal challenges against the rule are ongoing - in courts in California and Washington D.C. - but the long process to decide whether it is unlawful will likely continue past the 2020 elections, legal experts say.  

In the interim, tens of thousands of asylum claims are likely to be denied. The following explains how that could happen. 

Some migrants head to a legal port of entry to ask border agents for asylum, but since only a few are let across each day, long wait lists have formed. Other migrants cross the border illegally and turn themselves in to the first agents they see to ask for refuge.  

Under the typical process, asylum seekers are given an interview with a U.S. asylum officer to determine if they have a “credible fear” of persecution in their home country. If they pass that initial screening, they face an immigration judge who decides if their asylum claim has merit - a process that can take months or years because of huge court backlogs. Some migrants are detained during the wait, but many are released on bond or parole into the United States.  This year, however, the Trump administration adopted a new policy called the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” which skips the initial “credible fear” screening and sends some migrants to wait in Mexico during the U.S. court process. So far about 42,000 migrants have been returned to Mexico under the rapidly expanding policy that began on Jan. 29. That is only about 6% of the roughly 680,000 migrants who crossed the U.S. southern border from February through August this year.

WHO IS AFFECTED BY THE NEW RULE? 

The rule cuts off the possibility of U.S. asylum for almost all migrants arriving at the southern border if they have not sought refuge in a country they traveled through first. It will be applied by both asylum officers and immigration judges.  

The Daily Signal also stated the following about when the asylum rules will be going into effect:

The acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said a Supreme Court victory regarding asylum applicants will result in significant changes to the immigration process in a short time.

Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Ken Cuccinelli touched on what the Sept. 11 ruling will mean for the illegal immigrants who are reaching the U.S.-Mexico border en masse and lodging asylum claims.

“So [the impact on the ground] is already being felt,” Cuccinelli told host Margaret Brennan. “We will do it in the places where we have the logistics in place fastest first and then move it all the way across the border, but this will be measured in days, not weeks.”

The nation’s highest court ruled that the Trump administration can enforce its rule of barring asylum applicants from entering the country if they first did not seek protected status in a country they passed on their way to the U.S. 

The decision means the U.S. government could soon begin denying thousands of asylum applicants who reach the southern border—giving relief to the country’s immigration court system.