The Biden Administration Considers Stricter Procedures for Migrants Seeking Asylum

Amid a record-setting, election-year migrant crisis, the Biden administration is considering taking unilateral action to try and lower the number of asylum seekers entering the country.

The Biden team’s goal would be to make it harder for migrants to pass the initial screening for asylum.

NBC News reported Wednesday that policy changes would include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) being told to take a “last in, first out” policy as a way to prioritize recently arrived migrants for deportation, according to three U.S. officials.

Asylum officers would be told to raise the standards they use in their “credible fear interviews,” the first screening given to migrants trying to avoid deportation.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official questioned the “last in, first out” policy because it would leave millions of migrants already in the U.S. as their immigration cases are pushed to the back of the line, NBC News reported.

One congressional aide told the outlet that the reported actions could be taken quickly because raising the bar on asylum and deporting more newly arrived migrants are considered “low hanging fruit.”

The aide added that administration officials have not made a final decision yet about the new approach, which could be weeks away.

Any action President Joe Biden takes will be limited in scope because the DHS is short on funding, NBC News reported.

It was not known whether the policies would be implemented through executive order or a new federal regulation.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show that 301,983 migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexican border were reported for December. That’s a monthly record for encounters.

January saw 176,205 southern border encounters.

Congress has been working on bills that would result in stricter law enforcement at the border.

The Senate earlier this month unveiled a $118 billion bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill that was deemed “dead on arrival” at the House by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for failing to address the border concerns sufficiently.

House Republicans last week voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his failure to address the migrant crisis at the border.

Multiple reports last week said failure of the Senate bill meant ICE was facing a $500 million to $700 million budget shortfall, and was drafting plans to release migrants and cut its capacity to hold detainees.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.