Trump claims new power to ban asylum for immigrants who arrive illegally

Lawyers from immigration organizations have stated that they violate a founding principle of federal asylum: to judge each person's claim for asylum on the basis of merit. And the lawyers said that federal and international laws made it clear that the United States had to provide immigrants with the opportunity to seek asylum, whether they had entered the country legally or illegally.

Trump administration officials defended this new approach, saying the president was responding to statistics showing that most asylum-seeker migrants are finally denied – but not before many of the they leave their hearings and choose to stay illegally in the United States.

Once the president has proclaimed who was excluded from the new regulation, said one official, these people could enroll in two more modest programs, much less likely to allow them to stay in the United States.

An administration official who informed the reporters said the two programs would meet US treaty obligations – an badertion that critics say is not true. The official, who requested anonymity to provide details of the rules before their publication, said the new regulations were backed by laws giving the president broad control over those entering the states. -United.

The Immigration and Nationality Act provides that the President "may, by proclamation and for the period that he deems necessary, suspend the entry of any foreigner or any clbad of alien as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of foreigners any restrictions that it may deem appropriate. "

In writing the Supreme Court ruling upholding the president's travel ban this summer, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the immigration law "defer to the president in every clause. ".

At the beginning of the week, this caravan still had about 4,000 or 5,000 people and had reached Mexico City. Smaller caravans of several hundred people would also travel to the United States.

Since taking office almost two years ago, Mr. Trump has protested against what he calls weak laws allowing migrants illegally taken into their border country to seek asylum under false pretenses and then to be released to the United States, sometimes for years, waiting for the courts to determine the validity of their claim for asylum.

"Catching and releasing is a shame we have to endure," Trump said in a White House speech as he reinforced his anti-immigration message just days before the election. resulted in the release of illegal aliens into our communities after their arrest. "

The new rules are supposed to help end the "capture and liberation" by declaring large groups of migrants ineligible for asylum. Those who enter the United States illegally and attempt to seek asylum would be detained and returned promptly to their country of origin.

The changes made on Thursday in the area of ​​asylum are part of a concerted government effort by Trump and his hard-working colleagues, including Stephen Miller, senior adviser on domestic policy at the White House, to significantly reduce immigration by adopting extensive changes to the laws of the country.

In addition to the travel ban, Mr. Trump has dramatically reduced the number of refugees admitted to the United States from around the world. And he proposed rules that would punish legal immigrants by denying them green cards if they used public benefits such as vouchers and vouchers.

His administration has also attempted to end the long-standing temporary protection status program, which aims to provide temporary badistance to nationals of countries such as Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras, devastated by natural disasters or political conflicts.

And Mr. Trump has ordered the end of the Obama era program known as DACA (Deferred Action for Child Arrivals), which aims to protect about 1.8 million young immigrants from the United States. deportation and to provide them with permits to work legally in the United States.

Trump's attempts to end the temporary protection status program have also been blocked by the courts. But after more than a year of legal litigation, the Supreme Court upheld the third version of the president's travel ban in June, allowing it to take effect.

Overall, the Trump administration's immigration efforts have attempted to significantly slow the flow of immigration – both legal and illegal – into the United States.

The attack on the asylum is part of the administration's response to the sharp increase in the number of families in Central America trying to cross the southern border. In September, the Border Patrol apprehended 16,658 people in family units, a record number.

Last April, the Ministry of Justice began to implement a "zero tolerance" policy at the border, prosecuting all the adults caught crossing it illegally. This led to a policy of separating children from their parents and a political scandal that forced Mr. Trump to back down.

However, since then, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have worked beyond that to develop a range of new policies to stem the flow of families in Central America.

The formation of the migrant caravan near Mexico City fueled Mr. Trump's anger and prompted him to make his stoppage a central closing issue in the mid-term campaign.