BORDER SECURITYU.S. Unveils New Border Restriction Ahead of Thursday’s Title 42 Expiration

By Aline Barros

The Biden administration announced on Wednesday a new rule that would put in place restrictions that directly affect migrants who attempt to cross into the United States without authorization.

This is part of the government’s plan for the end of Title 42, an emergency order put in place in 2020 amid the COVD-19 pandemic that allowed U.S. border authorities to quickly expel migrants without giving them the chance to seek U.S. asylum.

Title 42 expires on Thursday.

“The Biden-Harris administration is implementing a comprehensive, multi-agency, multi-country plan rooted in enforcement, deterrence, and diplomacy to humanely manage the border with the lift of Title 42,” a senior immigration official told reporters on the condition their name would not be used, as is common in Department of Homeland Security briefings.

And just as when then-President Donald Trump invoked the public health measure, immigration advocates have said they will sue.

The International Refugee Assistance Project, or IRAP, issued a statement strongly opposing all policies aimed at restricting the ability of people to access their legal right to seek safety in the United States.

“The Biden administration should be ashamed of pursuing Trump-era policies to unjustly deny protection to people seeking safety in the United States and return them to danger,” Laurie Ball Cooper, IRAP U.S. legal director said. “The administration must immediately rescind this harmful and illegal rule.”

What Is This New Rule?
Under the rule, migrants crossing between ports of entry would be quickly removed through a process known as expedited removal under Title 8, the U.S. authority that covers immigration, and would therefore be ineligible for asylum unless they can prove they first requested protection in another country and were denied.

However, those who are able to schedule an appointment through CBPOne, a mobile app launched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in October 2020, will not be blocked from asylum protections.

Migrants with exceptionally compelling circumstances, an acute medical emergency, or who are victims of “a severe form of human trafficking,” or face an “imminent and extreme threat” in Mexico will not be barred under the new asylum restrictions, administration officials said.

The new rule is not expected to apply to unaccompanied children.

Those who meet the exemptions will face interviews with an increased security standard that is expected to result in more rejections than the usual credible fear interviews.

The credible fear interview is an initial screening where immigrants must show there is a compelling chance they will be persecuted or can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country. Migrants who cannot pass the new security standard will be deported from the U.S. and barred for five years.

“We are also significantly expanding, starting on Thursday, the use of expedited removal at the border. … We have spent much of the last year building out additional interview rooms and adding phone lines to both [Customs and Border Protection] and [Immigration Customs Enforcement] facilities in order to facilitate the interviews that are required under the expedited removal process for asylum officers,” according to a senior Biden official.

U.S. immigration official told reporters that 1,000 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service asylum officers were deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border to handle credible fear interviews starting Thursday.

“We have more than 24,000 law enforcement personnel deployed to the border, along with another 1,100 new border patrol processing coordinators, which is double the number we had last year,” the Biden official said during the call.

New Rule Justification
During the briefing, Biden administration officials cited the high levels of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in the last two years as the reason behind the new rule.

According to border officials, unauthorized crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border reached more than 8,700 a day in the past three days. In March, the daily average was 5,000 encounters.

The officials also said that without the new rule, encounters could average 13,000 after Title 42 is lifted.

The new rule was described by officials as a continuation of the extended multilateral effort to manage migration in the region, as they encourage migrants to enter the country through legally available channels such as CBPOne and a sponsorship parole program that each month allows legal travel to the U.S. after proper vetting for up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who have a U.S. citizen or legal resident to sponsor them.

Aline Barros is an immigration reporter for VOA’s News Center in Washington, D.C. This article is published courtesy of the Voice of America (VOA).