Asylum seekers will respond while awaiting news about their appointment with US authorities before crossing the El Chaparral port of Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico on January 20, 2025.
Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images
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Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images
The Trump administration is moving towards swift immigration court litigation by allowing judges to drop “a case of legally lacking asylum without hearing.”
Policy changes laid out in An April 11th Note It was sent to staff at the Enforcement Bureau for immigration review.
The order could result in immigration judges finding that someone is not eligible for asylum without a hearing.
The memo faces growing lawsuits as the Trump administration seeks to arrest and deport more people without permanent legal status in the United States, and experts argue it has been underfunded and underfunded for years.
“The Eoir adjudicator is obligated to manage the docket efficiently,” according to a memo submitted by acting director Sirce Owen. “From almost 4 million pending cases of Eoir’s docket, it’s clear that it’s not happening.”
The Enforcement Bureau for Immigration Examinations had more than that 4 million Pending cases for the last quarter of 2024, Includes 1.5 including pending asylum cases.
“One way to see this is that the pendulum is turning back towards the first Trump administration’s move,” Kathleen Bush Joseph, an attorney and immigration policy analyst at the Institute for Immigration Policy, said of the memo.
Under President Trump’s first term in the White House, immigration officers issued and imposed an order restricting asylum approval Quota for pressured judges They quickly decide on the case.
The policy memo reveals that “the adjudicators are not prohibited from taking all appropriate actions to immediately resolve docket cases that do not have a viable legal path to remedy or protection from removal.”
Before the note, the judges may have allowed hearings to those seeking asylum, and spent more time gathering the information needed for the application that had no significant details.
The directive effectively aims to increase the number of deportation orders issued before people were considered.Benefits of hearing“It allows them to make their claims in court.
The driving force to clear more cases from the docket also comes after the administration fires more than 100 EOIR staff, including judges, lawyers and interpreters.
Fast Tracking Asylum Cases can hurt people without legal assistance
Trump has already suspended asylum applications for people entering the US through the southern border. Presidential Order He signed in January. But the order Not applied For those seeking asylum applications already submitted, or asylum from other countries or northern borders.
Asylum has been part of US law since 1980, allowing people who are afraid of safety to seek shelter in the United States as long as they can demonstrate credible fear of persecution in their own country.
But asylum is a confusing concept, said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Association of Immigration Barriers.
“Historically, decisions regarding these applications are based on applications and based on questions about all facts and circumstances, including applications, submission of evidence, and applications, but not limited to applications,” Johnson said, adding that he hopes that cases will now have a faster termination rate.
Eoir did not respond to requests for comment.
Johnson and Bush Joseph said Most people don’t have it Attorneys say that many asylum applications may not be strong due to language barriers and the issues of understanding complex legal procedures.
“When people are not represented, they don’t necessarily know that they have certain rights and options to continue to pursue their claims,” Bush Joseph said. “It’s extremely difficult to navigate these legal questions quickly whether you’re a lawyer or not.”
Asylum cases could be part of the longest claims in immigration courts. American Immigration Bar Association Estimated in 2023 It takes an estimated 50-75 hours for an experienced lawyer to prepare an asylum application.
According to 2023 data collected by the Transaction Record Access Clearinghouse, those waiting for a decision on such a case usually need to wait just four years for a decision. You will see the most recent data collected by the group Even with the court-wide backlog falling, the asylum backlog rose by about 8% in the first two months of the year.
Johnson said the interests of inadequate litigation would not be high.
“When you apply for asylum, it’s literally a matter of life and death,” he said. “If you make that mistake and send someone back home who is actually facing persecution, they will be persecuted.”
