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On February 11, 2021, the Biden Administration announced the beginning of their plan to allow tens of thousands of asylum-seekers currently in Mexico to enter the United States. Approximately 25,000 asylum-seekers have been waiting for their immigration hearings in Mexico due to the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, established by the Trump administration. Also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, the MPP was introduced in January of 2019, forcing asylum-seekers arriving at the southern border to live in dangerous border cities while their asylum claims were pending.

The first of tens of thousands of asylum-seekers will be allowed entry into the United States beginning February 19, 2021. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hopes to process 300 individuals at two separate border crossings each per day. The Biden Administration has not named the locations of these border crossings in order to avoid immigrants rushing to these locations.

Biden’s new plan aims to undo the Trump policy that saw almost 70,000 asylum-seekers enrolled in the MPP program. This program was designed to deter asylum-seekers to the United States, one of the Trump Administration’s main focuses. According to the Associated Press, “the policy also exposed people to violence in Mexican border cities and made it extremely difficult for them to find lawyers and communicate with courts about their cases.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hearings for asylum-seekers remaining in Mexico have been suspended since June of 2020. Asylum-seekers will be tested for COVID-19 before entering the United States. Unfortunately, this new plan does not include relief for asylum-seekers whose cases were already dismissed or denied. Immigration advocates are urging the Biden Administration to address this issue as many cases were denied due to communication problems that caused them to miss their hearings.

Overall, this announcement by the Biden Administration is a positive step that will ensure due process for more asylum-seekers and the ability to have their cases properly heard. Since his inauguration, President Biden has continued to fulfill his promise to begin reforming the immigration system and undoing the damage done by the Trump Administration over the last four years.

On October 20, 2020, the Trump Administration announced a new rule that would further bar certain immigrants from obtaining asylum. This new rule set forth by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will go into effect on November 20, 2020. A copy of the rule can be found here.

This rule will prevent certain immigrants from obtaining asylum based on their criminal history. A DOJ Press Release lists these categories of immigrants including those who are convicted of any federal or state felony, alien smuggling, illegal reentry, gang activity, drunk driving, drug crimes, domestic violence, and other offenses relating to false identification.

The rule also bars immigrants who have committed certain domestic violence offenses even if they have not been convicted.

According to the DOJ, “To ensure that criminal aliens cannot obtain this discretionary benefit, the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security have exercised their regulatory authority to limit eligibility for asylum for aliens who have engaged in specified categories of criminal behavior.”

Immigrant advocates have expressed outrage over this new rule. Human Rights First asserts that this new rule will “disparately impact particularly vulnerable populations, including LGBTQ asylum seekers and asylum seekers from Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, and other regions who are routinely criminalized because of their identities, racially disparate policing practices, or in connection with experiences of trafficking and domestic violence.”

The publication of this rule comes as no surprise given the Trump Administration’s efforts to end immigration to the United States. Whether this rule will be successfully challenged in federal court in the future remains to be seen.

New information disclosed by U.S. government officials establish that in 2018 the Trump Administration actively pursued the separation of families arriving along the southern border of the United States, and that the goal of the policy was to deter people from entering the United States.

Michael E. Horowitz, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice, is in charge of a draft report on the policy, which the Trump Administration abandoned after worldwide condemnation.

“We need to take away children,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions told U.S. attorneys working in locations near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Trump Administration separated at least 5,000 families before a federal court ordered an end to the policy and the reunification of the separated families.

The draft report states that “The department’s single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions came at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy, especially with regard to prosecution of family-unit adults and the resulting child separations.”

In the draft report, which has not been released publicly, U.S. government officials noted that in a meeting about the policy, President Trump “ranted” and was on a “tirade,” and was “demanding as many prosecutions as possible.”

The draft report also includes details about U.S. immigration officials “taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants.”

Mr. Horowitz concludes in the draft that senior U.S. officials, including then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, were aware that “the prosecution of these family-unit adults would result in children being separated from families.”

On July 22, 2020, a federal Canadian judge ruled that an asylum treaty between the United States and Canada known as the “Safe Third Country Agreement” is unconstitutional. A copy of the decision can be found here. The Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) mandates that refugees must seek protection in the first country they arrive in. The Canadian judge deemed that the agreement with the U.S. violates Canada’s charter of human rights “because it returns asylum-seekers to the U.S., where they are ‘immediately and automatically imprisoned’ by U.S. authorities, often under inhumane conditions.”

The Safe Third Country Agreement came into effect in 2004. Since that time, many refugees have been denied entry into Canada because they arrived in the U.S. first, a designated “safe” country, where they could seek asylum. The ruling made by Federal Court Judge Ann Marie McDonald states “that the act of sending people back to the U.S., where they were at risk of imprisonment, violated their rights to life, liberty, and security.”

Canada’s Justice Department has thirty days to decide whether to appeal the decision. One of the applicants who challenged the Safe Third Country Agreement, Nedira Jemal Mustefa, was arrested after trying to enter through the Canadian Border from the U.S. She was placed in solitary confinement for one week and describes “losing 15 pounds as a result of not eating, saying that she was given pork even though she told officers she could not eat it for religious reasons.”

The Safe Third Country Agreement has raised more controversy since President Donald Trump took office and began carrying out the administration’s effort to limit asylum as well as other forms of immigration to the U.S. Moreover, “The deal has also been at the center of intense debate in Canada because a loophole allows asylum seekers who cross the border at unauthorized points of entry to proceed into Canada and file their claims.”

Overall, this new ruling further highlights how unwelcoming the U.S. has become to refugees. Unfortunately, the U.S. is becoming less and less of a haven for individuals fleeing persecution and harm in their home countries. Other countries have taken notice including Canada. Time will tell if similar decisions will follow.

This week, the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Justice released a draft rule, proposing severe changes that would make it increasingly difficult for immigrants to seek asylum in the United States. The complete draft rule can be found here and is set to be published on June 15, 2020 and will be open for public comment.

Since President Donald Trump took office, one of the administration’s main goals has been to impose tight restrictions on the immigration system, many of which have had a devastating impact on immigrants and their families all throughout the country and abroad.

The proposed rule to the asylum system is perhaps one of this administration’s toughest yet. According to CNN, “Under one proposed change, an individual’s asylum claim could face greater scrutiny if the person traveled through at least one country while on the way to the US but didn’t seek refuge there.”

In addition, the proposed rule states that an adverse factor for asylum seekers would be if they were living unlawfully in the U.S. for more than one year prior to seeking asylum as well as “failure to file taxes or having a criminal conviction — even if it was reversed, vacated or expunged — could count against an individual’s asylum claim.”

According to Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the U.S. Immigration Policy Program, “A lot of these provisions have been in the works with the administration for years . . . Rather than issue them as separate regulations, the administration has lumped together a lot of different provisions in this behemoth, Frankenstein asylum regulation.”

The current administration’s efforts to cripple the legal immigration system know no bounds. This proposed rule will severely impact immigrants who fear death or serious bodily harm to themselves or their families if they were to return to their home countries.

The majority of asylum seekers travel to the United States to seek refuge from harm that their own governments cannot protect against. Once a safe haven for refugees, the United States has become an increasingly difficult place to obtain asylum. This proposed rule along with other policies and regulations that the current administration have put into place over the last three years continue to wreak havoc on immigrants and their families who merely seek a better life in the United States. As a firm, we will continue to advocate for the rights of immigrants and their families in these tough times.

Beginning December 2019, the United States has begun taking Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers at the southern U.S. border and putting them on airplanes headed to Guatemala.  In July of 2019, the United States signed an agreement with Guatemala regarding the process.  The United States threatened to impose tariffs if Guatemala declined to sign the agreement.

According to the agreement, any person who travels through Guatemala on the journey to the United States must seek asylum in Guatemala.  Any person who does not seek asylum in Guatemala is subject to being sent to Guatemala.

Human rights migrants and activists have strongly opposed the agreement given Guatemala’s high rate of gang violence and crime rate.  Asylum seekers are likely to be placed in peril once sent to Guatemala.  Many asylum seekers who arrive at the U.S. border are escaping life-threatening situations and are now more at risk of being sent to a country in which they have never resided.

The United States is currently sending Honduran and El Salvadoran asylum seekers to Guatemala every two days via plane.  According to the Washington Post, “Many arrive with the same question: ‘Where are we?’”   Migrants have been placed on planes without knowing where they are going and without further instruction regarding what to do once they are arrive in Guatemala.

When they arrive in Guatemala City, the migrants receive little information about the asylum application process.  If they don’t immediately apply, they are told to leave Guatemala within 72 hours.

The United States has signed similar agreements with Honduras and El Salvador, but they have yet to take effect.