The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice announced Monday new restrictions for asylum seekers from third countries who pass through Mexico trying to enter the United States across the southern border.
Specifically, the joint Interim Final Rule (IFR) allows U.S. entry to asylum seekers from third countries who qualify under three exceptions. They must demonstrate they applied for asylum from torture or persecution in another country and were denied such asylum; they must qualify as a “victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons” ; or they must have come “to the United States through only a country or countries that were not parties to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, or the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security statement, the number of immigrants seeking asylum has tripled since 2013 through 2018.
“This interim rule will help reduce a major ‘pull’ factor driving irregular migration to the United States and enable DHS and DOJ to more quickly and efficiently process cases originating from the southern border, leading to fewer individuals transiting through Mexico on a dangerous journey,” said acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan in the statement.
McAleenan also suggested that the IRF will benefit America in decreasing the number of asylum seekers.
“Ultimately, today’s action will reduce the overwhelming burdens on our domestic system caused by asylum-seekers failing to seek urgent protection in the first available country, economic migrants lacking a legitimate fear of persecution, and the transnational criminal organizations, traffickers, and smugglers exploiting our system for profits,” McAleenan said.
Attorney Gen. William Barr emphasized the legal authority DHS and DOJ “provided by Congress” to implement the rule.
“The United States is a generous country but is being completely overwhelmed by the burdens associated with apprehending and processing hundreds of thousands of aliens along the southern border,” Barr said in the statement. “ This Rule will decrease forum shopping by economic migrants and those who seek to exploit our asylum system to obtain entry to the United States—while ensuring that no one is removed from the United States who is more likely than not to be tortured or persecuted on account of a protected ground.”
Trenton Abrego is a staff writer for Homeland411.
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