UNDERSTANDING THE CHANGES DONALD TRUMP
JUST PROPOSED TO ASYLUM PROCEDURE.
The Trump Administration
just announced its plan for new regulations to further restrict the rights of
asylum seekers arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. These newly announced plans would further limit
the legal rights of asylum seekers, accelerate their deportation procedures
making it difficult for them to defend against deportation, limit their right
to work while their cases go forward and charge them a fee for applying for
asylum.
Here’s a brief summary
of what those new proposed changes would do: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-changes-donald-trump-just-proposed-asylum-kerosky
(To read about what
steps the Administration has taken previously to limit asylum and restrict
legal immigration, and California’s efforts to fight these proposals, see: https://www.sonomacountygazette.com/sonoma-county-news/immigration-stories-by-christopher-kerosky-may-2019)
All of these changes
would significantly change the asylum procedures set up 40 years ago by
Congress when they passed the Refugee Act of 1980 setting up the asylum system.
1. Limiting
Options in Deportation Proceedings
Asylum seekers at the border already
have to pass detailed interviews to convince a federal officer that they have a
“credible fear” of persecution in their home country based on race, religion, political
opinion, or social group. Now. Trump
proposes putting them into special deportation court proceedings, which would
limit their options for rights to request other relief-- for example, denying
them a right to stay based on marriage to a U.S. citizen.
2. Accelerating Deportation
Proceedings
Trump also proposes that all asylum
cases to be heard within a six-month period except in “exceptional
circumstances.” The problem is that this would make it harder for asylum seekers
to get a lawyer, obtain all the documents from their home country to prove
their case and prepare for their deportation hearing properly.
3. Charging a Fee to Apply for Asylum
Applying for
protection has been free since ever since the Refugee Act of 1980 created the procedures
almost 40 years ago. Under Trump’s new plan, asylum seekers would have to pay a fee to apply. For
people fleeing their country with little or nothing, this would cause more
people to abandon their asylum claims.
4.
Banning Work Authorization
Under the current rules, asylum applicants
can obtain the right to work legally while they wait for a final decision on
their application. Under the new rules, most
recent asylum seekers would be banned from getting work authorization. This
would deny them the right to legally work while going through the asylum
process. Clearly this would make it more difficult for them to survive in the
U.S. while they try to prove they would be persecuted if they go back to their
home country.
