“They would close off every possibility for the average asylum seeker to even have a fair process much less getting asylum,” said Michael Knowles, a spokesman for the National CIS Council, which represents employees with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the legal immigration agency. An officer from Citizenship and Immigration Services screens applicants to verify their claims of being persecuted based on race, religion, political beliefs or a number of other factors. The proposal put forward in June by the department of Justice and Homeland Security would significantly raise the standard that migrants would have to meet. Migrants also would not be entitled to a full hearing in which an immigration judge could hear their claims under the proposal. And it would give officers expanded authority to declare asylum applications “frivolous,” barring migrants from seeking other forms of immigration relief in the United States.

Source: International New York Times July 15, 2020 21:22 UTC