Trump administration barring asylum seekers from the United States

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The Supreme Court is temporarily allowing the Trump administration to deport would-be asylum seekers, seeking to change the process on who is allowed asylum in the United States. 

According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), anyone can now be barred from seeking asylum in the United States if one “can be removed to a safe third country under a two-party or multi-party agreement between the United States and other countries.”

The process of entering the U.S. as a refugee or asylee has historically been difficult. These changes are aimed to actively target Hispanic immigrants seeking protections. 

To seek asylum in the U.S., one has to go through seven lengthy steps under the Affirmative Asylum Process. 

According to the National Immigration Forum(NIF), the asylum process takes from months to “several years.”

This system is increasingly backlogged. The NIF notes the average wait time for an immigration hearing in 2018 was 721 days, or more than two years. 

According to the NIF, “the backlog has been worsening over the past decade as the funding for immigration judges has failed to keep pace with an increasing caseload.”

This system was built on denying people from entering the country. 

Families and children aren’t judged on who is deserving of protections. But rather if they’ll be, according to acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli, a burden. 

This system looks at how many people can be declined from entering the States. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse released a report that found that in 2018, the U.S. barred 65 percent of asylum seekers. They also found that the decline rate surpassed the acceptance rates. 

This new rule aims to increase denial rates by retroactively deporting asylum seekers. 

This is not the first time asylum and refugee seekers have faced bureaucratic challenges. In 2018, Mother Jones reporter Noah Lanard covered a Louisiana immigration judge that denied every asylum seeker that reached her courtroom. 

According to Lanard, Judge Angelis Reese denied more than 200 cases between 2011 and 2018. 

President Donald J. Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric has fueled hatred against immigrants in this country. 

While he tweets “BIG United States Supreme Court WIN for the Border on Asylum!” there are hundreds of families being deported at the border because they were unable to seek asylum elsewhere. 

As of late September, there is no word on how long the Trump Administration can impose these new rules.

The Supreme Court ruled the administration can temporarily impose these new rules as long as its legal fight plays out in lower courts. 

To seek asylum in the United States means risking your life. You have to leave everything behind and navigate hundreds, if not thousands of dangerous miles. 

You may have to cross rivers and canals. You risk being robbed, assaulted or even killed. 

Once you reach the border, the United States is not waiting to help you. We’re arresting and separating families. 

Under this administration, we have taken the international right of global citizens to seek protection from crime and poverty. 

Immigrants come to the United States for necessity. Immigrant families have to make the difficult decision of risking everything to allow their children to have a better future. But we don’t care about that. 

USCIS looks at refugees and asylum seekers as criminals and threats to our national security. The Trump Administration has enabled USCIS and Border Patrol to actively demonetize and dehumanize the most fragile families in the world.