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U.S. announces new rule to empower asylum officials to reject more migrants earlier in process
The Biden administration announced a new regulation Thursday aimed at allowing immigration officials to more quickly identify and deport migrants who are ineligible for U.S. asylum earlier in the process.
The regulation by the Department of Homeland Security would apply to migrants who ask for asylum after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. CBS News reported the administration’s plans earlier this week. At this point, as a proposed regulation, it must go through a public comment period before taking effect.
It would instruct government asylum officers to apply certain barriers to asylum that are already part of U.S. law during so-called credible fear interviews, the first step in the years-long asylum process. Those who pass these interviews are allowed to seek asylum before an immigration judge, while those who fail them can be deported expeditiously.
On a call with reporters, a senior homeland security official said this would affect migrants who pose “significant threats” to public safety and national security, such as suspected terrorists. These are migrants “we are very concerned about,” the official said, but the size of the population is “limited.”
Migrants barred under U.S. law from asylum include those who may pose a danger to public safety or national security. The rule would allow officials to reject and deport migrants in these categories soon after they cross the border.
Separately, DHS also issued new guidance Thursday to asylum officers instructing them to disqualify migrants from asylum earlier on in the immigration process if they are able to relocate to other parts of their home country where they may be safe.
The new regulation, which is relatively narrow in scope, is one of several actions the Biden administration has been considering to restrict access to the U.S. asylum system amid a spike in applications in recent years, mostly driven by migrants crossing the southern border illegally.
HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden is also considering invoking a sweeping presidential authority to enact a broader restriction on asylum ahead of the election in November, sources with knowledge of the deliberations told CBS News. The authority, known as 212(f), allows presidents to suspend the entry of migrants whose arrival is deemed to be detrimental to U.S. interests. Former President Donald Trump invoked the law to justify several immigration restrictions, including a travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries.
While the newly announced regulation will not affect massive numbers of migrants, it still reinforces a policy shift by Mr. Biden, who earlier in his presidency promised to “restore” the U.S. asylum system.
But after record levels of migrant apprehensions along the southern border, including over 2 million in each of the past two years, and an accompanying political backlash, Mr. Biden’s administration has enacted and floated more restrictive asylum rules.
CBS News
1-month-old twins who died with mother believed to be the youngest-known Hurricane Helene victims
Month-old twin boys are believed to be the youngest known victims of Hurricane Helene. The boys died alongside their mother last week when a large tree fell through the roof of their home in Thomson, Georgia.
Obie Williams, grandfather of the twins, said he could hear babies crying and branches battering the windows when he spoke with his daughter, Kobe Williams, 27, on the phone last week as the storm tore through Georgia.
The single mother had been sitting in bed holding sons Khyzier and Khazmir and chatting on the phone with various family members while the storm raged outside.
AP
Kobe’s mother, Mary Jones, was staying with her daughter, helping her take care of the babies. She was on the other side of the trailer home when she heard a loud crash as a tree fell through the roof of her daughter’s bedroom.
“Kobe, Kobe, answer me, please,” Jones cried out in desperation, but she received no response.
Kobe and the twins were found dead.
“I’d seen pictures when they were born and pictures every day since, but I hadn’t made it out there yet to meet them,” Obie Williams told The Associated Press days after the storm ravaged eastern Georgia. “Now I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”
The babies, born Aug. 20, are the youngest known victims of a storm that had claimed more than 200 lives across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas. Among the other young victims are a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy from about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south in Washington County, Georgia.
“She was so excited to be a mother of those beautiful twin boys,” said Chiquita Jones-Hampton, Kobe’ Jones’ niece. “She was doing such a good job and was so proud to be their mom.”
Jones-Hampton, who considered Kobe a sister, said the family is in shock and heartbroken.
In Obie Williams’ home city of Augusta, 30 miles east of his daughter’s home in Thomson, power lines stretched along the sidewalks, tree branches blocked the roads and utility poles lay cracked and broken. The debris left him trapped in his neighborhood near the South Carolina border for a little over a day after the storm barreled through.
He said one of his sons dodged fallen trees and downed power lines to check on Kobe, and he could barely bear to tell his father what he found.
Many of his 14 other children are still without power in their homes across Georgia. Some have sought refuge in Atlanta, and others have traveled to Augusta to see their father and mourn together, he said.
He described his daughter as a lovable, social and strong woman. She always had a smile and loved to make people laugh, he said.
And she loved to dance, Jones-Hampton said.
“That was my baby,” Williams said. “And everybody loved her.”
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