WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is debating changes to the immigration system in exchange for providing money to Ukraine to fight Russia and Israel to fight its war with Hamas.
President Joe Biden has said he is willing to make “significant compromises at the border” to meet Republican demands to tie aid to an overhaul of U.S. border policy.
Republicans say the record numbers of migrants crossing the southern border pose a security threat because authorities cannot adequately screen all migrants and those entering the United States are straining the country's resources. Republican lawmakers also say they cannot justify to their voters sending billions of dollars to other countries, even in wartime, without concern for the border at home.
But many immigration advocates, including some Democrats, say some of the proposed changes would weaken protections for people who urgently need help and would not actually ease the chaos at the border.
Much of the negotiations are taking place privately, but some of the topics discussed are familiar: asylum standards, humanitarian parole and expedited deportation authority, among others.
A look at what they are and what could happen if there are changes:
Humanitarian probation
Humanitarian parole allows the U.S. government to allow people into the country, essentially bypassing the regular immigration process. This power should be used in individual cases for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit”. Migrants are typically admitted for a predetermined period of time and there is no path to U.S. citizenship.
Over the years, both Democratic and Republican administrations have used humanitarian parole to admit people to the United States and to help groups of people from around the world. According to research by the Cato Institute, it was used to receive people from Hungary in the 1950s, from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the second half of the 1970s, and by Iraqi Kurds who cooperated with the United States in the mid-1990s had.
FILE – Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico line up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Eagle Pass, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. Congress is debating changes to the immigration system in exchange for providing funding to Ukraine to fight Russia and Israel to fight its war with Hamas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Under Biden, the US has relied heavily on probation on humanitarian grounds. The US flew nearly 80,000 Afghans from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and brought them to the US after the Taliban came to power. The US has taken in tens of thousands of Ukrainians who fled after the Russian invasion.
In January, the Democratic administration announced a plan to admit 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under humanitarian parole as long as those migrants had a financial sponsor and flew to the U.S. instead of crossing to the U.S. border and Mexico to go.
The latest US government figures show that almost 270,000 people had been admitted to the country under this program as of October. Separately, 324,000 people have received appointments through a mobile app called CBP One, which is used to grant parole to people at land crossings into Mexico.
Republicans have essentially described the programs as an attempt to bypass Congress by admitting large numbers of people who would otherwise have no opportunity to be admitted. Texas sued the government to stop the program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
WHAT COULD CHANGE WITH ASYLUM?
Asylum is a form of protection that allows a migrant to stay in the United States. and have a path to American citizenship. To qualify for asylum, someone must fear persecution in their home country based on very specific criteria: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political views. Asylum seekers must be on U.S. soil when applying for this protection.
You usually go through an initial screening, a so-called credible fear interview. If they are determined to have a chance at asylum, they are allowed to remain in the U.S. to pursue their case in immigration court. This process can take years. In the meantime, asylum seekers can start working, getting married, having children and building a life.
Critics say the problem is that most people don't receive asylum when their case finally ends up in immigration court. But they say migrants know that if they apply for asylum, they will essentially be allowed to stay in America for years.
“People don't necessarily come to apply for asylum to participate in that asylum decision-making process,” said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration court judge and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for less immigration to the United States
FILE – Migrants form lines outside the border fence awaiting transport to a U.S. Border Patrol facility in El Paso, Texas, May 10, 2023. An agreement to provide more U.S. aid to Ukraine by year's end appears increasingly out of reach President Joe Biden. Republicans insist on tying the funding to changes to America's immigration and border policies. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)
Some of the lawmakers' discussions would raise the bar that migrants must meet in that first credible fear interview. Anyone who does not comply with this will be sent home.
But Paul Schmidt, a retired immigration court judge who blogs about immigration court issues, said the credible fear interview was never intended to be so harsh. Migrants conducted the interview shortly after arriving at the border after an often arduous and traumatizing journey, he said. Schmidt said the interview was more of an “initial screening” to weed out those with frivolous asylum claims.
Schmidt also questioned the argument that most migrants fail the final asylum test. He said some immigration judges apply overly restrictive standards and that the system is so overloaded that it is difficult to accurately know the most recent and reliable statistics.
WHAT IS ACCELERATED DISTANCE?
Expedited deportation, enacted by Congress in 1996, essentially allows ordinary immigration officials, as opposed to an immigration judge, to quickly deport certain immigrants. It was not widely used until 2004 and was generally used to deport people apprehended within 100 miles of the Mexican or Canadian border and within two weeks of arrival.
FILE – President Joe Biden speaks with U.S. Border Patrol agents on Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023, as they walk along a section of the U.S.-Mexico border that is becoming increasingly inaccessible to President Joe Biden in El Paso, Texas. Republicans insist on tying the funding to changes to America's immigration and border policies. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Defense attorneys say it relieves pressure on overburdened immigration courts. Immigration advocates say the application is error-prone and does not provide migrants with adequate protections, such as assistance from a lawyer in arguing their case. As president, Republican Donald Trump pushed to expand this expedited deportation policy nationwide and for longer periods of time. The opponents filed a lawsuit and this expansion never happened.
WHAT CAN THESE CHANGES DO?
Much of the disagreement over these proposed changes comes down to whether people believe deterrence works.
Arthur, the former immigration court judge, believes this is the case. He said changes to credible fear asylum standards and restrictions on the use of humanitarian parole would represent “a watershed moment”. He said it would be a “costly undertaking” as the government would have to detain and deport many more migrants than today. But at some point, he argued, the numbers of people arriving would decline.
But others, like Schmidt, the retired immigration court judge, say migrants are so desperate that they will come anyway and make dangerous journeys to evade Border Patrol.
“Desperate people do desperate things,” he said.