Washington.– In the months since President Biden imposed sweeping asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border, the policy appears to be working exactly as he hoped and his critics feared.
The number of people seeking asylum in the United States has dropped by 50% since June, according to new figures from the Department of Homeland Security. Border agents are acting more effectively, administration officials say, and many border hot spots, such as Eagle Pass, Texas, have calmed down.
The numbers could provide a powerful counterargument to what has been one of the Biden administration’s biggest political vulnerabilities, especially as Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, tries to fend off Republican attacks.
But immigrant advocates say Biden’s executive order is clearing out too many people, including those who should be allowed to have their cases heard even under the new rules. They say the numbers are so low in part because of a little-noticed clause in the new policy, which changed how migrants are treated when they first arrive at the border.
Under the new rules, border agents are no longer required to ask migrants whether they fear for their lives if they are returned to their home country. Unless migrants raise such a fear themselves, they are quickly sent back to their home countries.
It’s hard to know how many people with legitimate cases are turned away for failing to “express fear,” as the practice is known. But critics of the new policy say it’s deeply unfair to desperate people who have no idea how to seek help in the United States.
Lee Gelernt, senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued to block the policy in federal court, said in an email: “The administration knows full well from past practice that the manifestation rule will result in immigrants with legitimate asylum claims being denied even a dangerousness screening.” “Simply put, the manifestation rule will send migrants fleeing for their lives back into grave danger — and the administration knows it.”
Mr. Biden’s executive order was a dramatic rewrite of the long-standing American promise to allow people from around the world to seek refuge in the United States when they no longer feel safe in their home countries.
The order states that only people who enter the country through an official port of entry with an appointment will be considered for asylum at the southern border, with limited exceptions for unaccompanied minors, victims of human trafficking and people facing serious medical emergencies or threats to their lives.
Before the new rules went into effect, migrants crossed the border illegally and sought out border agents to turn themselves in, knowing that anyone who set foot on U.S. soil could ask for protection. Often, after an initial check, they were released into the United States to wait, sometimes for years, for their cases to be resolved.
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