President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will fast-track decisions on asylum cases in an effort to cut down the massive backlog left by former President Joe Biden’s administration.
On Monday, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joe Edlow announced a rule change that allows the agency’s adjudicators to refer asylum applications to federal immigration judges without first interviewing the applicant.
“This rule will shorten the total time that it takes asylum officers and Immigration Judges to adjudicate asylum applications,” a news release from USCIS states. “Among other reasons, USCIS is making this change to reduce the asylum backlog.”
Indeed, the asylum case backlog had ballooned to the millions under the direction of Biden’s DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas as a result of the administration’s expansive catch and release policy that freed millions of migrants with no immigration status into the U.S. interior.
By the end of Fiscal Year 2024, the Biden administration had surged the asylum backlog to 3.6 million cases. At the same time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) non-detained docket, those illegal aliens not detained by the agency but who are pending deportation, ticked up to a record 8.1 million cases.
“For far too long the asylum system has been exploited for purposes of delay and work authorization, not legitimate claims of protection,” Edlow said:
America’s asylum system exists to protect individuals who genuinely fear persecution and this rule will help ensure that resources are directed to the timely adjudication of those claims instead of to those seeking to use the system as a loophole. [Emphasis added.]
The rule goes into effect immediately. DHS General Counsel James Percival said illegal aliens and the attorneys that represent them, on a broad scale, intentionally delay their deportation cases in an effort to evade immigration enforcement.
The updated rule, Percival said, will “improve efficiency and fulfill the President’s mandate.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected].
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