The American Immigration Council does not endorse or oppose candidates for elected office. We aim to provide an analysis of the election’s impact on the U.S. immigration system.
Ports of entry along the border should be places where people in need of protection can come to seek humanitarian relief. However, since 2016, each presidential administration has used different tactics to remove people from ports of entry (POE) along the U.S.-Mexico border before they arrive. Finally, in October, the Ninth Circuit ruled that turnbacks are illegal and that meter policies that enforce them violate immigration law.
It will take a long time for the Court of Appeal to issue a decision. Al Otro Lado, which provides on-the-ground legal and humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers, has been working with a group of private plaintiffs since 2017 to fight U.S. customs and border protection (CBP) use of scales. It has been fought through a lawsuit filed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). American Immigration Council and its partners.
Under the metering system, which officially ran from 2017 to 2021 and began in 2016, CBP officers stationed at the border turned away asylum seekers attempting to appear at a POE. Such counterattacks included threats, coercion, physical and verbal abuse, and other illegal tactics.
Because CBP refused to process rejected individuals, it did not maintain records of those affected. Instead, asylum seekers often register on unofficial “lists” maintained by various groups on the Mexican side of the border, and CBP contacts the list custodians to request a small number of asylum seekers on a given day. Applicants had to wait until they could appear before the POE. .
CBP often attempted to justify metering policies by citing a lack of capacity to handle personnel at POEs. But in 2020, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS) found that many of CBP’s claims about capacity issues did not reflect reality.
Metering, which officially ended as a policy, and adoptions that continue in various forms at POE, had devastating consequences for thousands of people, many of whom urgently sought protection in the United States. In northern Mexico, vulnerable families and children have been pushed back and stranded indefinitely in precarious conditions. Migrants there routinely experience high levels of violence, exploitation, and lack of access to health care and basic necessities.
In a recent decision, the Court of Appeals held that people stopped at the border by CBP while attempting to reach a POE have the right to apply for asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act. For CBP to return people in these situations would violate the government’s legal obligation to screen and process them. The appeals court also partially rejected a district court’s injunction that blocked the government from enforcing the Trump administration’s asylum ban on people who were subject to the ban solely because CBP illegally read their meters. I supported it.
Although the court’s decision may not have immediate practical implications because the policy is no longer in effect, it is an important legal victory for asylum seekers’ rights under immigration law.
However, other challenges to CBP’s policies and practices at POEs may benefit from the court’s ruling. Al Otro Lado and the Haiti Bridge Alliance, another organization that provides critical services to underrepresented immigrant groups, said CBP was denying asylum seekers who were unable to secure an appointment through the CBP One smartphone app. The company filed a lawsuit in July 2023. The majority of plaintiffs’ claims in this case recently survived a motion to dismiss. However, the Biden administration’s June 2024 proclamation and new policies create additional hurdles for asylum seekers trying to access ports.
All these policies work to keep people from attending POE legally. Paradoxically, it also causes irregular border crossings between ports by people who urgently need protection or who cannot survive in the life-threatening conditions of northern Mexico. This despite DHS officials publicly urging asylum seekers to go to POEs to request protection and stating that DHS is committed to “safe, orderly, and regular” migration. Something is happening.
Of course, this administration, and whoever is elected this week, could immediately bring CBP’s current practices into line with the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. Governments could also follow the law and stop turning asylum seekers away from POEs, ensuring people have safer and more dignified ways to access their statutory rights to seek protection. Unfortunately, as the past eight years have shown, governments rarely choose to do things to the detriment of immigrants, their constituents, and the American people.
Submitted to: Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection
