President Joe Biden and senior Democratic aides are reportedly considering a new approach to cap the flow of migrants entering the United States by barring asylum seekers who have not already applied for asylum in another country.
The move to curb the flow of illegal immigration resembles a Trump-era “transit ban” which automatically denied the asylum claims of migrants who had traveled through other countries but had not sought refuge elsewhere along their journeys, the New York Times reports
The announcement comes as Title 42, a public-health regulation first used by former president Donald Trump during the pandemic to restrict immigration into the United States, is set to expire on December 21 in accordance with a federal judge’s ruling.
Once this policy expires, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) projects between 9,000 and 14,000 migrants will arrive on the southern border daily. Currently, under the Title 42 protective umbrella, illegal crossings range between 6,000 and 7,000 daily.
“As we prepare to transition to the next phase of our work to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way, the Department of Homeland Security will continue to double down on these proven strategies,” an unnamed official in the Biden White House told Axios Tuesday.
However, the move is enflaming fellow Democrats who see the proposal as harkening back to Trump-era xenophobia.
“For the Biden administration to resurrect that horrific policy would be playing into Stephen Miller’s hands…It’s almost like Stephen Miller is still in the White House trying to block from asylum people seeking protection from persecution,” a director for refugee protection at Human Rights First told the New York Times.
Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer who fought Trump’s transit ban policy said much the same. “If the Biden administration simply substitutes the unlawful and anti-asylum Trump transit ban for Title 42,” Mr. Gelernt said, “we will immediately sue, as we successfully did during the Trump administration,” Gelernt told the New York Times.
Since coming into office, Biden has overturned many Trump-era immigration restrictions on visas and proposed a pathway to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants now living in America.
Consequently, the southern border has been inundated with illegal migrants and asylum seekers: A record 2 million illegal immigrants were apprehended at the border this fiscal year.