Chris Lange, FISM News
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The Biden administration on Tuesday rolled out a proposal that would temporarily render migrants ineligible for U.S. asylum unless they can prove that they were denied asylum in Mexico or another third country.
The proposed new rule was made “in anticipation of a potential surge” of migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border “following the eventual termination” of Title 42, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo. The measure would “encourage migrants to avail themselves of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States, or otherwise to seek asylum or other protection in countries through which they travel, thereby reducing reliance on human smuggling networks that exploit migrants for financial gain.”
DHS acknowledged that without the measure, unauthorized migration to the U.S. “is expected to increase significantly, to a level that risks undermining the Departments’ continued ability to safely, effectively, and humanely enforce and administer U.S. immigration law, including the asylum system, in the face of exceptionally challenging circumstances.”
The Trump administration’s previous efforts to implement similar rules were blocked by federal courts, which has not gone unnoticed by migrant activist groups.
“We successfully sued to stop the Trump asylum bans and will sue again if the Biden administration enacts these anti-asylum rules,” Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who has led several high-profile immigration litigation efforts, told Axios.
The border crisis has become an albatross around Biden’s neck at a time when the president is poised to announce a bid for a second term in office — something that is not lost on Republican and Democratic lawmakers. High-profile politicians from both parties have recently visited the U.S.-Mexico border, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)
DEFIANT MAYORKAS: ‘THEY WILL NOT FORCE ME OUT’
Meanwhile, House Republicans are set to launch another round of hearings on the border crisis Thursday, dubbed “The Biden Border Crisis, Part II” as they continue to lay the groundwork for the possible impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Republican lawmakers have accused Mayorkas of gross dereliction of duty, citing the unprecedented number of illegal border crossings that have taken place under his leadership. They have also accused Mayorkas of committing perjury when he testified on Capitol Hill in April that the U.S. had “operational control” of the border.
For his part, Mayorkas remains defiant, telling CNN’s Chris Wallace on Sunday: “They will not force me out.”
“I’m not going to resign,” Mayorkas said. “I call upon Congress — as the president has done, as this nation has done — to actually fix an immigration system that has been broken for decades,” he added.
“I don’t have any intention of being uncooperative. I have complete confidence in the integrity of our decision-making,” Mayorkas told Wallace.
The DHS recently hired a private law firm to help with potential impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas.