Biden Administration to Unveil New Asylum Rule

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The Biden administration plans to unveil new changes to the asylum system Thursday, including expediting the expulsion of migrants who officials consider national security or public safety risks, according to media reports.

The move comes just months ahead of the 2024 presidential election and as the migrant backlog in the U.S. has left millions of people living in uncertainty about whether they’ll be allowed to stay in the U.S.

A March Axios report said more than 8 million asylum seekers and other migrants “will be living inside the U.S in legal limbo by the end of September — a roughly 167% increase in five years.”

The new rule would allow officials to bar migrants from asylum within days, and in some cases, hours of them illegally crossing the border, Axios reports.

Immigration is a divisive campaign issue and many Republicans have hammered Biden over the border situation — campaign ads for some politicians liken the arrival of migrants at the border to an “invasion.”

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has made the topic his signature issue ahead of November.

“By definition, an invasion is an incursion by a large number of people or things into a place,” said Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the Trump campaign. “There is no better way to describe Joe Biden’s open border, which has allowed tens of millions of people to freely enter our country.”

The report comes two days after NBC News said Democrats were preparing a new immigration strategy, including potential executive actions.

It is unclear if the plan is related to Wednesday’s news, although a Department of Homeland Security official with knowledge of those discussions told NBC News the White House would most likely invoke power reserved for the president in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows a president discretion over who is admitted into the U.S.

Amy Fischer, director of Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA, said the executive action was “merely a political move to amp up cruelty against people seeking asylum at the border ahead of the elections.

“Instead of investing in policies that build and strengthen a humanitarian infrastructure, the Biden administration has instead decided to sow more chaos at the border and restrict the rights of people seeking asylum in the U.S.”