An immigration rule the Biden administration touts as a “cornerstone” of its border policy is not having the effects on the border crisis that its creators hoped it would.
The screening standards attempt to identify weak claims for protection, including race, religion, and political opinion. The rule, originally declared a success, was implemented after the Biden administration lifted a pandemic-era asylum restriction in May, and officials hoped it would slow down the flow of illegal immigrants. Agents are supposed to conduct screenings before agents in the processing centers prepare documents for the immigration court, but due to staffing shortages, they’ve only occurred in a fraction of arrests.
“The rule is working as intended and has already significantly reduced encounters at the border,” Blas Nunez-Neto, assistant homeland security secretary for border and immigration policy, said in a court filing last June.
The rate of asylum-seekers who did successfully pass the enhanced screening from June through September was 59%, down from 85% over the previous five years, according to the Associated Press. But officers only interviewed 57,700 immigrants through the new process, according to Nunez-Neto, which accounts for approximately 15% of almost 365,500 immigrants who were released by Border Patrol during the same four month period.
Lawmakers have attempted to provide more staffing on the border, but a new border security bill failed to pass the Senate earlier this month that would have included 4,338 new asylum officers.
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The bill, which took months of negotiations, also would have included 1,500 new Border Patrol agents, 100 new immigration judges, and other changes to the asylum process.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
