On Sunday, Secretary of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denied that President Biden’s new immigration policy was similar to former President Donald Trump’s following a lot of criticisms about the administration’s policies which could have a negative effect on migrants.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week” stated that the ACLU is “effectively” arguing that Biden’s immigration policy was not in any way different from the asylum ban that Trump had implemented during his administration. However, Mayorkas was quick to deny these allegations stating that the administration’s current policy did not include an asylum ban.
As he told Karl there was a governmental and humanitarian responsibility to try and reduce the number of smugglers that try to undercut the administration.
However, Karl was quick to point out that in one critical way, the two policies were the same, as under Trump’s policy one would need to first apply for asylum in a different third country before being able to apply in the U.S. This is exactly what is happening under the current Biden administration policy, which requires people to have applied for asylum in one of the country’s they crossed on their way to the U.S.
Mayorkas however, once again denied these accusations simply noting that those who had not tried to gain asylum in a different country would just have a “higher threshold of proof” to qualify for asylum. He added that under their rules they provide legal pathways for those who want to enter, and even if those have not been followed, there is no complete ban on asylum, but rather a higher threshold for people to fulfill.
