Immigration Budget Strained by White House’s Asylum Policies

Located inside large white tents near Tucson International Airport, Border Patrol agents efficiently process approximately 1,000 migrants, releasing them within two days of arrest with orders to appear in immigration courts at their final destinations. Agents quickly transmit information to colleagues who prepare court papers while migrants are transported to a processing center several hours away, reducing their time in custody.

What is noticeably absent from this busy hub in the most active corridor for illegal border crossings into the U.S. are asylum officers who typically conduct initial screenings to filter out weak asylum claims that do not meet specific grounds for protection, such as race, religion, and political opinion.

About a year ago, asylum officers were instructed to apply a stricter screening standard to those who cross the border illegally after passing through another country, like Mexico. However, due to inadequate staffing, this standard has had minimal impact. The Biden administration has emphasized this higher standard as a key element of its border policy in legal battles, but the limited application of the policy in a small percentage of arrests highlights the mismatch between ambitions and budgets.

Ongoing financial strains are a major concern as the White House deliberates sweeping measures to restrict the asylum process at the border.

A failed $20 billion spending plan for border security has prompted the administration to reassess its priorities. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, facing a $700 million deficit this year, is contemplating reducing the number of detention beds from 38,000 to 22,000 and scaling back deportation flights. These potential measures, initially reported by The Washington Post, were confirmed to The Associated Press by an anonymous U.S. official unauthorized to speak publicly.

The unsuccessful spending plan proposed by Senate negotiators would have allocated $4 billion to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, including funds to hire 4,338 asylum officers to manage asylum applications and make final decisions — more than four times the current staffing levels.

Following the implementation of a higher screening standard for border crossings from Mexico, illegal arrests dropped by 42% to the second-lowest monthly rate of Joe Biden’s presidency. The new standard replaced asylum restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This rule has been credited with significantly reducing encounters at the border, according to Blas Nuñez-Neto, the assistant homeland security secretary for border and immigration policy.

Under the tougher screening criteria, asylum-seekers had a 59% approval rate through September, down from 85% in the five years prior to the pandemic, as reported by Nuñez-Neto. However, the limited scope of the policy is evident as officers only conducted 57,700 screenings under the new rule through September, representing just 15% of the nearly 365,500 migrants released by Border Patrol from June to September with notices to appear in immigration court.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to provide more recent figures but maintains that the higher screening standard is effective, despite acknowledging its struggle to keep up with the unprecedented flow of migrants. The department urges Congress to allocate adequate funding for these efforts.

While asylum officers carried out over 130,000 screenings — known as “credible fear interviews” — at the border during the 2023 fiscal year, a considerable increase from the previous year, more than 600,000 migrants were released with court notices during that period. Another 300,000 were given orders to report to an immigration office for a court date, a practice that has largely ceased.

One such migrant, Mbala Giodi from Angola, waited for hours in the mountains east of San Diego after crossing the border from Mexico before being taken to a holding station by agents. After spending two days there, he was released at a transit center in San Diego, with an initial court hearing scheduled for May in New York to present his reasons for fleeing his homeland due to government repression as a student protester.

To implement the higher screening standard, Citizenship and Immigration Services hired around 1,000 additional staff to support the existing 850 asylum officers. Former asylum officers and other employees were trained for short stints to handle the increased workload, according to Michael Knowles, a spokesperson for the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council. This union represents workers at the agency, which oversees various immigration-related services.

The influx of employees to handle border cases led to extended wait times for other services, with mandatory weekend overtime and holiday work becoming common due to the overwhelming workload and pressure faced by the staff.

A lack of resources also hindered another Biden policy implemented in June 2022, which empowered asylum officers to make final decisions on asylum claims, not just screenings. This policy aimed to alleviate the burden on immigration judges who are struggling with a backlog of over 3 million cases, allowing asylum-seekers with weak claims to remain in the U.S. for years while their cases are processed.

By the end of September, fewer than 6,000 asylum cases had been decided under the 2022 policy.

Advocates for asylum-seekers have challenged the application of the higher screening standard, arguing that it unfairly penalizes those who cross the border illegally while a limited online appointment system exacerbates the challenges of coming through an official port of entry. Despite legal battles, the standard remains in place while awaiting appeal, possibly reaching the Supreme Court.

Although migration flows initially decreased after the higher standard was implemented, border arrests rose in five of the last six months of 2023 as migrants and smugglers adjusted to the evolving situation, peaking at a record high of 250,000 in December.