Since April, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has been working 7,900 migrants from state to Washington, DC In August, he started sending them to New York. Now, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is stepping in, sending two planes carrying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. To hear Mr. Abbott narrate, he call blasphemy of green state mayors who claim to welcome undocumented immigrants. It is also part of secret plan of the Republican Party to stoke anger among Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.
Aside from the politics, one thing is clear: Our immigration system has long been overloaded and outdated, and the asylum process is a big part of what doesn’t work. The number of new asylum applications Filings in US immigration courts skyrocket to 156,374 people by 2022 – four months away – from 32,895 in 2010. This is in part due to conflict and Covid that has created a wave of mass migration across the world. bridge. Immigration courts have not been able to keep up with the increase in new arrivals. In 2010, there were about 100,000 asylum cases backlog. Today, that number has grown to more than 660,000. When other types of cases, such as deportation orders, are included, the backlog in immigration courts grows. more than 1.8 million.
The numbers reflect a recent spike in migration. Follow a recent report by my Times colleague, Eileen Sullivan. Each person has one year to apply for asylum. It’s not just a Biden-era phenomenon: A similar number was conceded by the Trump administration over a 24-month period in 2018 and 2019, the last major migration wave.
Combined, those numbers broke the system. Although refugee hearings are supposed to be held within 45 days of an application being filed, the current wait time for an asylum hearing averages nearly four and a half years, according to compiled research data at Syracuse University’s TRAC center. The longer it takes to resolve a case, It’s harder to get rid of people asylum seekers were refused, as happened in more than half of the asylums last year’s case. It is expected that more than 745,000 deportation proceedings was started in 2022, more than double that of any other year, except 2019. The long delay in processing asylum cases has turned into a serious crisis, self-perpetuating: They encourage people to apply for asylum without grounds, knowing it will buy them years, even if they are eventually deported.
Part of the problem is that asylum is one of the few legal avenues that economically desperate people can use to get permission to live and work in the United States. According to U.S. law and United Nations conventions established after World War II, people who express a “well-founded fear of being persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, members of a particular social group or political opinion” are allowed to await their asylum cases within the United States, where they can apply for work authorization. 150 days after applying for asylum. The Employment Authorization Document must be renewed every two years, creating another mountain of paperwork that the bureaucracy has to keep up with.
Asylum seekers with proven cases are among those most harmed by false claims, which significantly increases the time they have to wait for legal protection.
The Trump administration has tried a number of methods to discourage people from applying for new asylum, including forcing some to stay in Mexico while they seek asylum in the United States. However, Asylum claims really surged under President Donald Trumppartly due to an increase in migration but also to protect against his intensifying efforts to deport people.
The global outbreak of Covid-19 has presented a new opportunity to cut asylum claims. Title 42, the pandemic-related public health policy that the Trump administration instituted in March 2020, has allowed US officials to quickly deport migrants at the border without giving them the opportunity. association to apply for asylum. Many people were pushed back to Mexico, leaving them more dangerous. The Biden administration announced it would reopen the asylum process at the border and seek to stop using Title 42, but more than 20 Republican attorneys general have sued to keep Title 42 in place, even if one Some of them resisted other Covid containment efforts, and stressed that the pandemic was overblown. So far, the administration’s efforts to change the policy have been blocked by a federal judge.
Title 42 will eventually be lifted; at that point, the country would rely on Title 8, the pre-pandemic agency under which U.S. agents could quickly deport or fine those caught illegally entering the United States unless they are considered eligible to apply for asylum. This is fairness; A well-functioning system must be empowered to quickly fire and remove people with unfounded claims, and connect those with valid cases to social support networks. In this respect, the Biden administration has not received the credit it deserves for an important, if not appreciated, position. change the rules that might overhaul the system. This summer, refugee officers are trained several asylum claims have been adjudicated at several ICE detention facilities in Texas, relieving immigration courts. Denied asylum seekers can still appeal to the judge. The hope is that the speedy adjudication of new cases will prevent a growing backlog and discourage false or invalid applications.
The new rule is not the welcoming backdrop that many immigrant rights activists want from the Biden administration after four years of President Trump. Nor is it the zero-tolerance treatment that many Republicans see as the only way to stop migrants from congregating at the border. But it is reasonable policy based on Recommendations and extensive research by reputable groups, including the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. In an age when almost everything a president does about immigration attracts a lawsuit, it has been carefully written to be as provable as possible. Combined with bipartisan effort improve border citizen handling capacity at reception centers that have all relevant departments under one roof, it can ultimately transform a broken system into an efficient one more modern and fairer.
At a time when Americans are already at odds over what we might call core values - the cultural beliefs that hold our nation together – it makes sense to worry about whether more whether new entrants complicate the task of building a shared future. Yet it is also a thorny issue of who we are and whether we will continue to be a place where the tired, poor, gathered masses of the world can get a second chance. . To stay true to our identity as a pluralist country, we need an asylum system that ensures that those who are eligible for protection can get it – while minimizing abuses of the system. who just try to ignore.
