Last night, President Donald Trump proposed sweeping changes to how the United States treats asylum-seekers in a memorandum for the Attorney General.
The stated purpose of the memorandum is to “… strengthen asylum procedures to safeguard our system against rampant abuse of our asylum process.”
The memorandum instructs the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, within 90 days, to take all appropriate actions to:
(a) propose regulations to ensure that aliens who receive positive fear determinations are placed in asylum proceedings or, if not eligible for asylum, are placed in withholding of removal proceedings;
(b) propose regulations to ensure that, absent exceptional circumstances, all asylum applications adjudicated in immigration court proceedings receive final administrative adjudication, not including administrative appeal, within 180 days of filing;
(c) propose regulations setting a fee for an asylum application not to exceed the costs of adjudicating the application … and setting a fee for an initial application for employment authorization for the period an asylum claim is pending; and
(d) propose regulations … and other applicable statutes to bar aliens who have entered or attempted to enter the United States unlawfully from receiving employment authorization before any applicable application for relief or protection from removal has been granted, and to ensure immediate revocation of employment authorization for aliens who are denied asylum or become subject to a final order of removal.
Lally Immigration Services, LLC is closely monitoring this issue and will provide updates as the become available. For more information on asylum, please contact Lally Immigration at (617) 870-1000 or by email to [email protected].
