The Biden administration will pause its signature effort to reform asylum processing at the border, Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed Wednesday.
The so-called asylum processing rule, which the administration launched with great fanfare in 2022, allowed asylum officers to grant and deny asylum to migrants at the southern border.
Administration officials say the pause is a temporary measure designed to ensure that the country’s immigration agencies are prepared for a potential increase in border crossings after the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allows border agents to quickly turn back migrants.
But critics say the pause signals President Biden’s latest move away from reforming the asylum process and back toward Trump-style restrictions at the southern border.
“It’s tragic to see the administration abandon even minimal progress in favor of recycling Trump policies that are intentional in their cruelty,” said Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center. Altman said that the policy had many problems that needed fixing but that it “represented one of the few efforts by this administration to prioritize humanitarian processing.”
by Prozco®