President Biden has vowed to get tougher on border restrictions — a red hot political necessity on the optics alone — and now the Biden administration has proposed a plan to deny asylum seekers who have not sought asylum in countries they have traveled through on their way to the US border. That means migrants from anywhere in South America would have to apply for asylum in Mexico or elsewhere before being eligible to seek asylum in the US.
Exceptions to the rule would include children traveling alone, asylum seekers facing imminent and extreme threat in their native countries, and people in acute medical distress, along with other exemptions.
Critics have been swift to point out that the Biden plan is largely similar to the border plan put forth by the Trump administration in 2019, when it was defeated in a federal appeals court.
“We successfully sued to block the Trump transit ban and will sue again if the Biden administration goes through with its plan,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who sued the Trump administration to get the ban blocked.
The ACLU published an article in January calling the policy “deadly,” warning in a headline that “Biden Must Reverse Plans to Revive Deadly Trump-era Asylum Bans.”
The administration did not heed that ACLU warning, despite the claim the ACLU makes that “the administration’s own records, alongside NGO reports, make it painfully clear that these countries have not developed working asylum systems and that, for many migrants, it would be pointless and life-threatening to stay and apply.”
Asserting that Biden’s policy differs from Trump’s only superficially, the ACLU writes that “Biden’s proposed tweaks to Trump’s asylum bans are mere window dressing.” The current proposal will stand for a 30-day public comment period — and certain legal action — before adoption.
