Significant tightening
New US asylum rules: Biden is now doing the Trump
US President Joe Biden has announced a tightening of measures against illegal immigration in the middle of the election campaign. The measures bear the stamp of Donald Trump. The United Nations expressed "deep concern" at the tightening of the measures.
Among other things, migrants from Mexico who cross the border without authorization are to be excluded from an asylum procedure and can be quickly deported or sent back. The Republicans in Congress had left him no choice, the Democrat said in Washington on Tuesday. He would introduce the stricter measures by decree.
For months, the Republicans in the Senate have been blocking a bill originally supported by both parties that provides for similar steps. However, they turned their backs on it when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized the plans and intervened behind closed doors, fearing a loss of votes.
Decision by decree
Biden's decree stipulates that migrants who cross the border illegally can be deported more easily and at shorter notice if they do not explicitly request asylum. Those who do so will from now on be subject to stricter checks by border officials and must be able to claim "credible fear" of persecution or torture in their home country, among other things.
They will then be granted protection, but not under the same standards as asylum seekers. Exceptions are to be made for unaccompanied children and people who are seriously ill, as well as for victims of human trafficking and direct threats.
Gradual tightening
The new asylum restrictions are not to apply permanently, as was reported in US government circles prior to Biden's announcement. They are only to take effect if the average number of arrests at the border rises to more than 2,500 per day in a week. They are to be suspended again if the number of arrests falls below 1500 per day.
The United Nations has expressed "deep concern" at the tightening of the measures and called on the Biden administration to rethink. "The new measures will deny many people in need of international protection access to asylum," explained the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They would also have no way of getting to safety.
The UNHCR called on the USA to fulfill its international obligations. The government in Washington should reconsider restrictions "that undermine the fundamental right to seek asylum".
"We will sue."
Bürgerrechtsanwalt Lee Gelernt
Immigration and civil rights groups immediately announced lawsuits. They accuse Biden of pushing ahead with measures similar to Trump's. "We will sue," said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the civil rights group ACLU. "An asylum ban is just as illegal as it was when Trump unsuccessfully tried it."
Biden breaks election promise
Biden had actually run for office in 2021 with the promise to reverse Trump's restrictive immigration policy. However, he was confronted with record numbers of migrants crossing the border illegally. Last year, he tightened the countermeasures.
Illegal immigration is one of the key issues in the election campaign ahead of the vote in early November. Biden accused Trump of torpedoing urgently needed legislation in Congress in order to take advantage of it in the presidential election campaign.
"This is an extremely cynical political move and fails the American people, who don't expect us to weaponize the border, they expect us to fix it," Biden said. He would have preferred bipartisan cooperation on legislation to better staff and fund the relevant agencies.
Implementation has many question marks
A number of questions regarding the feasibility of the decree remained unanswered on Tuesday. For example, the US government is relying on Mexico to take in deported people. There are also doubts as to whether the currently approved funds are even sufficient for the additional work of the Border Patrol - Congress would have to release the corresponding federal aid.
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