BREAKING: Trump’s New Asylum Rule Might Shut Down Most Central American Migrants
Patrick Howley
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President Donald Trump’s administration is in the process of confirming a new rule through the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice Monday that stands to block Central American migrants from presenting themselves as asylum seekers in the United States if they travel through Mexico or other countries on their journey.
“The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security (“DOJ,” “DHS,” or collectively, “the Departments”) are adopting an interim final rule (“interim rule” or “rule”) governing asylum claims in the context of aliens who enter or attempt to enter the United States across the southern land border after failing to apply for protection from persecution or torture while in a third country through which they transited en route to the United States.
Pursuant to statutory authority, the Departments are amending their respective regulations to provide that, with limited exceptions, an alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States across the southern border after failing to apply for protection in a third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which the alien transited en route to the United States is ineligible for asylum.”
Rule passage ends
President Donald Trump is making progress in containing the border crossing crisis, with arrests of migrants dropping 29 percent in the month of June.
The Border Patrol’s approximately 95,000 June arrests represents a dip from 133,000 the previous month, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Trump’s ICE raids — relatively limited in scope — have commenced after several weeks of partisan wrangling and Trump administration in-fighting. Trump first announced the effort on Twitter on June 18. A politically motivated leak of Trump’s plans stalled the raids, but the Department of Homeland Security is now internally investigating its own acting secretary Kevin McAleenan for possible involvement in the leaking.
On June 24, Mexico reportedly sent troops to its borders with both the United States and Guatemala/Belize after heated negotiations in which Trump threatened to impose a tariff on Mexican goods coming into the United States.
The fruits of this effort have yet to be measured by July’s border crossing numbers.
Ultimately, the fate of America will be determined by President Trump’s ability to change the immigration laws that provide amnesty for illegal border crossers, and by President Trump’s ability to build the Wall.
Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court to access the Defense Department money that he needs to secure our country.
The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to lift a freeze on Pentagon money it wants to use to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.
Two lower courts have ruled against the administration in a lawsuit over the funding. Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco kept in place a lower court ruling preventing the government from tapping Defense Department counterdrug money to build high-priority sections of wall in Arizona, California and New Mexico.
At stake in the case is billions of dollars that would allow Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump ended a 35-day government shutdown in February after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding, far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking. Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall.
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