What Actually Happened
The surge in asylum seekers outlined in this case is representative of the increasingly urgent conditions on the U.S. southern border. Then president Donald Trump advocated for stronger anti-immigration policies, including a promise to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and efforts to restrict the entry of refugees and asylum seekers. These policies came at a time of significantly increasing immigration; the number of people migrating from Central America grew tenfold between 2015 and 2019 and continues to rise today.
In January 2019, the administration announced a new policy, informally known as Remain in Mexico. Under this policy, asylum seekers were required to wait in Mexico for a period of forty-five days before their credible fear interview. Asylum seekers were then returned to Mexico to await their date in immigration court. The U.S. government also signed “asylum cooperation agreements” with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, allowing the United States to reject asylum claims of migrants who passed through one of these countries without applying for asylum there. These agreements resemble other agreements known as safe third country agreements. These agreements dictate that an asylum seeker should apply for asylum in the first safe country they reach (rather than keep going to a preferred destination).
These policies received criticism both domestically and internationally. The border towns in Mexico where most migrants were forced to wait are known for trafficking, smuggling, and extraction. Similarly, Northern Triangle countries are generally unsafe for asylum seekers. The Remain in Mexico policy and other Safe Third Country agreements therefore raised questions about whether they violated the principle of non-refoulement.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted further restrictions on immigration. In March, citing efforts to combat the spread of disease, the Trump administration announced that it would deny entry to noncitizens attempting to cross the border. The administration further began automatically expelling migrants who had made unauthorized crossings into the United States, effectively shutting down the asylum system.
Upon taking office in January 2021, President Joe Biden expressed a desire to significantly alter U.S. immigration policy. Biden used executive action to roll back many of Trump’s immigration policies, which the administration deemed inhumane. This has included suspending construction of a border wall, increasing the refugee limit, and extending TPS to migrants fleeing Myanmar and Venezuela.
However, some Trump-era asylum policies remained in place. For instance, Biden continued Trump’s policy of expelling migrants making unauthorized crossings during the pandemic until 2023. Although the Biden administration initially suspended the Remain in Mexico policy, legal challenges delayed the administration’s efforts to dismantle the program for years.
These policies have unfolded amid an increasingly urgent situation at the U.S. southern border. Border crossings have reached record highs in recent years. Over 2022 and 2023, U.S. agencies encountered nearly five million migrants at the border. Compounding the issue, political deadlock over migration policy has deepened. Issues like aid to Ukraine have intensified debates over the prioritization of limited U.S. resources. As debate continues while urgency grows, it is clear that policymakers will need to continue considering U.S. asylum policies for years to come.