Biden’s border plan working? Here’s how the top immigration official says it’s working: An interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep
As part of NPR’s We, The Voters 2024 election series, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the person tasked with executing Biden’s vision on immigration, sat for an interview with Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep.
Earlier this year, Mayorkas was impeached by House Republicans who alleged that his use of parole to allow some migrants into the country was unlawful. The Senate quickly dismissed those charges.
Mayorkas: Our goal is to eliminate the phenomenon of irregular migration completely. In order to get between the ports of entry, people put their lives on the line, and it’s dangerous and feeds a criminal network. And instead, we want them to use lawful pathways to make claims for relief under United States law. We have built more lawful pathways in this administration than any other time, and we are attempting to discourage immigrants from entering our country at our southern border.
Mayorkas: One, the numbers have decreased. The numbers increase and decrease as a result of migration. But the numbers have decreased. We have removed or returned an historic number of people this year, that’s more than in any year since 2011.
Inskeep: During our reporting, we talked with John Modlin, who’s the chief patrol officer for the Tucson sector, a very busy sector of the border right now. He said the increase began in 2021. as the Biden administration was taking office and that migrants thought the laws would be different. I know the administration tried to message differently and told people not to come, but why do you think that didn’t work well?
Biden Border Asylum Policy Alejandro Mayorkas: What Are We Really Selling? Is Biden’s Border Plan Working? The Top Immigration Official Says It Is Not Working
Mayorkas is absolutely correct. I won’t have the precise numbers, but I’m going to ballpark it. There were close to a million encounters in the two years.
Mayorkas: Remember what we are fighting. We are fighting sophisticated organizations that peddle misinformation. We want to counter that reality with accurate information.
Inskeep: It seems to me that your policy difference is in part with Republicans in that you want immigrants to come legally. Republicans don’t want a lot of people to come. Is that a fair description?
Inskeep: They think the asylum seekers are taking advantage of the system. It’s time to talk about the asylum-seekers and not other immigrants who may be allowed to come here.
When one looks at the numbers who have claimed and the numbers who succeeded, I would respectfully submit that the majority don’t qualify.
Source: Is Biden’s border plan working? Here’s how the top immigration official says it is
Bipartisan Border Security: What’s Happening? An Empirical Comment on “Mexico’s Immigration Problem” by a Representative Born in Mexico
We spoke to a congressman who was born in Mexico. He says it’s taking too long for legal immigration applications to be processed, while the border is “wide open” for arriving migrants. Is there a reason that the law allows people to come and ask for asylum, but they have to wait several years before a court hearing?
The bipartisan legislation would have eliminated the years-long process between encounter and final adjudication in our ability to remove that individual. And I would respectfully wish that the congressman had actually supported that bipartisan legislation rather than opposed it. If the people want to fix the system, they should advance solutions rather than dwell on the problem and decline to implement solutions.
The congresswoman believes that individuals who are seeking other lawful processes and their cases are taking longer due to having to allocate resources to the challenge at the border. That’s not the only reason that the duration of time has been extended. You know, the prior administration gutted our legal immigration system, financially gutted. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services provides citizenship and immigration services. If they had actually promulgated a fee rule that properly resourced that agency, the backlogs would not have accumulated as they have.
The failed bipartisan border that lost Republican support in the Senate was referred to by Mayorkas. 20 billion dollars for border security would have been allotted by the deal and made it harder for people to claim asylum.
Biden meanwhile continued some Trump-era policies and has dealt with a record-number of apprehensions at the border during his presidency and a backlogged immigration system. He’s being accused of being too soft on immigration or too harsh on those trying to escape conflict in their home countries.
In his second term, Trump said he would crack down on migrants and asylum seekers at the border and immigrants already living in the country. In his first term, Trump enacted policies that separated thousands of children from their parents and ordered migrant asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases were evaluated.
National Immigration Forum’s CEO, Jennie Murray said that it will change the process slightly. If this rule is put in place, it could lead to shortening the years-long asylum back up and avoiding long detaining stays for this group of people.
Under the new rule, immigration officials at the Southern border could quickly reject an asylum claim if that person’s criminal history is deemed to pose a threat to national security. In that circumstance, the person would be deported.
This determination could happen during the ‘credible fear’ stage, within days of the migrant being encountered by immigration officials. This is the stage when migrants claim that if they are sent back to their countries they could be tortured and killed.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told NPR that the vast majority of the people arriving at the border are not going through the credible fear process. The number of arrivals at the border right now exceeds the number of people who would apply to this rule.
Congress can fix the broken immigration system, but Mayorkas said that they wouldn’t take any more action.
The severity of crimes committed by migrants seeking asylum is difficult for ICE attorneys to assess, according to Paul Hunker, who worked as a chief counsel for the U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The new rule will make it easier for other immigration officials to find people guilty of crimes that they really aren’t.
Biden’s Rule to Regulate the Asyrian Refugee’s Discrimination Criterion is Perturbatively Obscured
“Now, desperately grasping to salvage his failed presidency, President Biden attempts the most minimal action possible, hoping to mask the crisis he created,” Abbott said.
The rule is part of a long standing effort to further curtail the due process rights of asylum seekers, according to the vice president for strategic partnerships and advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center.
There is no proof that terrorists or criminals are getting into the asylum system on a systematic basis.
To have counsel and to have prepared for their case, as an Assyrian asylumseeker they have to endure what is usually a lengthy and difficult journey after being persecuted,” Wala said.
“The fact that Congress is doing nothing and putting this pressure on the administration, who then has to issue a (rule) and hope it doesn’t get hold up in adjudication is really perplexing,” Murray said.
A senior DHS official confirmed to reporters that the proposal will be published on Monday and will provide for a 30-day public comment period. They think a final rule would be implemented this year.
However, a similar proposal by former President Donald Trump in 2020 but was halted by a federal judge, and advocates expect Biden’s rule to also be challenged.