The Biden administration announced that it would attempt to streamline its asylum application process next week, The Hill reported.
Beginning on Tuesday, asylum officers within the Citizenship and Immigration Services will be permitted to review a portion of the applications. As it stands, only one of around 600 immigration judges can approve those fleeing foreign nations.
"This rule is designed to transform how asylum claims are handled at our nation's borders. To cut down unwieldy, slow-moving bureaucracy and establish a fair and efficient process in its place," a senior administration official told reporters on Thursday.
"It will allow non-citizens who are eligible for relief to be granted relief quickly. And importantly, it will also allow DHS [Department of Homeland Security] to swiftly remove individuals who are ineligible much earlier in the process."
According to the outlet, the new policy, which will initially only be available in a couple of Texas facilities, would shift asylum seekers into a quicker process than the current 1.7 million immigration court case backlog.
Citizenship and Immigration Services currently has 750 officers on staff to process the claims but hopes to add another 250 with new hires.
The news comes a week after a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the Biden administration's attempt to lift U.S. Code Title 42 § 265, a provision utilized since the beginning of the COVID pandemic that allows the surgeon general to limit immigration based on public health risk.
The administration official told The Hill that the court decision means some asylum seekers could potentially be expelled from the country without having a chance to claim asylum.
"There have historically always been significant numbers of both single adults and family units who cannot be expelled pursuant to Title 42 for a range of different reasons. And those individuals may be eligible to be processed pursuant to the procedures laid out in the … rule," the official said.
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