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America's Shifting Asylum Policies Explained

Ramon Taylor

   VOA's Victoria Macchi contributed to this report.
   With the U.S. Supreme Court's [1]decision this month allowing President
   Donald Trump's restrictive asylum policy to go forward, for now,
   migrants who claim asylum at America's southern border without first
   seeking protection in another country they transited can be denied.

   The de facto ban on border asylum claims is the latest in a series of
   policy shifts the Trump Administration has implemented during a period
   of near-record migration from the Americas and beyond. The U.S. Border
   Patrol reports it has intercepted more than 800,000 migrants and
   asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border during the 2019 fiscal year,
   which ends September 30.

   Asylum bans at the US-Mexico border, a brief history

   The administration issued the [2]current policy, sometimes referred to
   as "asylum ban 2.0," on July 16. It followed in the footsteps of an
   [3]earlier attempt, in November 2018, to deny asylum to any migrant who
   crossed the border between ports of entry. A federal court blocked the
   first effort to restrict asylum, and the Supreme Court refused to grant
   an emergency stay of the injunction.

   In short, "asylum ban 1.0" failed to materialize. Migrants were still
   allowed to present themselves to authorities and request asylum,
   whether they arrived at a border crossing point or whether they were
   apprehended after crossing undetected into U.S. territory.

References

   1. https://www.voanews.com/usa/major-impact-expected-supreme-court-asylum-decision
   2. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/16/2019-15246/asylum-eligibility-and-procedural-modifications
   3. https://www.aila.org/infonet/presidential-proclamation-migration-border

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