The change in the Biden administration comes as US immigration officials reported an unusually high number of encounters with migrants at the southern border.
The United States government on Wednesday ended two Trump administration policies that made it harder for immigrants fleeing violence to qualify for asylum, especially Central Americans.
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued new instructions to immigration judges to prevent following the Trump-era rules that made it tough for immigrants who faced domestic or gang violence to win asylum within the us . He also undid a policy that made it difficult for immigrants to get asylum supported threats to a loved one .
The moves could make it easier for immigrants to win their cases for humanitarian protection and were widely celebrated by immigrant advocates.
“The significance of this can't be overstated,” said Kate Melloy Goettel, legal director of litigation at the American Immigration Council. “This was one among the worst anti-asylum decisions under the Trump era, and this is often a very important initiative in undoing that.”
Garland said he was making the changes after President Joe Biden ordered his office and therefore the Department of Homeland Security to draft rules addressing complex issues in immigration law about groups of individuals who should qualify for asylum.
Gene Hamilton, a key architect of the many of former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies who served within the Department of Justice , said during a statement that he believed the change would cause more immigrants filing asylum claims supported crime which shouldn't be a reason for protections.
The Biden administration changes come as U.S. immigration authorities have reported unusually high numbers of encounters with migrants on the southern border. In April, border officials reported the very best number of encounters in additional than 20 years, though many migrants were repeat crossers who previously had been expelled from the country under pandemic-related powers. the amount of youngsters crossing the border alone also has hovered at all-time highs.
Many Central Americans arrive on the border fleeing gang violence in their countries. But it is not easy to qualify for asylum under U.S. immigration laws, and therefore the Trump-era policies made it that much harder.
More than half asylum cases decided by the immigration courts within the 2020 financial year were denials, consistent with data from the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review. Four years earlier, it had been about one in five cases.
In the current financial year , people from countries like Russia and Cameroon have seen higher asylum grant rates within the immigration courts than people from El Salvador , Guatemala and Honduras, the info shows.
Immigration judges abide by instructions set by the attorney general, and their courts are within the Department of Justice .
In one among the reversals, Garland restored a 2014 case that defined married women in Guatemala who are unable to go away their relationship as a gaggle deserving of asylum, a choice that eased the way for other victims of violence . In 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned that guidance and added that victims of gang violence also should be largely ineligible, extending the scope to large swaths of non-government actors.
In another case involving a Mexican man who claimed his father was targeted by a trust , Garland reversed a choice by former Attorney General William Barr that said such family ties were insufficient grounds for an asylum claim.
Jason Dzubow, an immigration attorney in Washington who focuses on asylum, said he recently represented a Salvadoran family during which the husband was killed and gang members started coming after his children. While Dzubow argued they were in peril due to their family ties, he said the immigration judge denied the case, citing the Trump-era decision among the explanations .
Dzubow welcomed Garland's changes but said he doesn't expect to suddenly see large numbers of Central Americans winning their asylum cases, which remain difficult under U.S. law.
“I don't expect it's getting to open the floodgates, and every one of a sudden everyone from Central America can win their cases. Those cases are very burdensome and difficult,” he said. “We got to make a decision: can we want to guard these people?'”
