美国国家公共电台 NPR--Biden rolled out tougher asylum rules. Advocates say it's a betrayal of his promises.

Biden rolled out tougher asylum¹ rules. Advocates say it's a betrayal of his promises.

Transcript²

The Biden administration unveiled sharp new restrictions³ on who can seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border this week.

It's the latest move in a larger crackdown aimed at discouraging migrants from crossing the border illegally — one the White House says is working.

But immigrant advocates say it's a betrayal of President Biden's promises to rebuild the asylum system at the border.

"My main reaction is disappointment," says Andrea Flores, a former member of Biden's National Security Council. "It's far more punitive⁴ than I anticipated would come from this administration, and this immigration team."

Flores and other former administration officials say a vigorous debate has been playing out since the days of the presidential transition. Biden had pledged to restore asylum protections for the most vulnerable, while also trying to deter⁶ migrants from making the dangerous journey through Mexico and crossing the border illegally.

When Biden took office, he quickly signed a flurry of executive orders rolling back some of former President Trump⁷'s harshest immigration policies.

"In the beginning, it felt like we were all rowing in the same direction," says Flores, who served as the director of border management on Biden's National Security Council. "One of our clear goals was how do you offer access to asylum in an orderly way."

But as migrant apprehensions⁸ at the border rose to record levels, Flores says, the debate shifted. Republican criticism of the administration's border policies grew louder. And the president's advisors¹⁰ in the White House grew increasingly obsessed¹¹ with getting the border numbers down, she says.

"They were considering many of the tools that the Trump administration used and that Democrats¹² had really uniformly condemned," Flores says. "And that was very unsettling to me."

Flores quit after less than a year, and is now chief counsel for U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. She was not surprised last month when Biden announced a new set of border enforcement policies.

Biden's plan combines carrots and sticks

"We can't stop people from making the journey," Biden said in remarks at the White House on Jan. 5. "But we can require them to come here — that they come here in an orderly way under U.S. law."

Biden announced a mix of incentives¹³ and disincentives — in other words, carrots and sticks — intended to discourage migrants from crossing the border illegally.

The new measures include a legal pathway for up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — if they qualify. At the same time, the administration announced it would begin to quickly expel migrants from those four countries under the pandemic restrictions known as Title 42, if they crossed illegally.

The White House credits those measures for a sharp decline in the number of migrant apprehensions, at least so far. Immigration authorities encountered migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border more than 250,000 times in December 2022, the highest monthly total ever. But this January, those numbers dropped sharply — to their lowest level in almost two years.

This week, the administration unveiled its biggest stick yet: A temporary rule that would make it much harder for migrants to get asylum if they cross the border into the U.S. illegally, after passing through Mexico or any other country without seeking protection there first.

Preparing for the end of Title 42

The White House says the proposed rule is necessary to manage what officials call a temporary "surge" in migration⁵ levels that they expect when Title 42 restrictions are lifted.

For years, immigration authorities have used that public health authority as a de facto tool for managing the border. Now those authorities say they are preparing for what will happen if Title 42 ends on May 11, as currently planned.

"To be clear, this was not our first preference or even our second," said a senior administration official during a briefing with reporters on Tuesday. "It is intended to fill the void that Congress has left by taking no action, and to help us ensure secure and humane¹⁴ processing of migrants when Title 42 does lift.

"This administration just won't allow mass chaos¹⁵ and disorder¹⁶ of the border because of Congress's failure to act," said the official, who spoke¹⁷ on condition of anonymity¹⁸ under ground rules set by the administration.

But immigrant advocates are furious.

New enforcement measures prompt an outcry

"Not only is it a clear contradiction of U.S. law and international agreements, it violates President Biden's own promises to restore asylum," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, the CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, on a call with reporters Wednesday.

"This is very nearly a carbon copy of the Trump asylum ban that was blocked by the courts just a few years ago," Vignarajah said.

That Trump-era policy would have turned back nearly all migrants who crossed through Mexico on their way to the U.S. Many Democrats — including then-candidate Biden — were strongly opposed at the time.

"This is the first time ever you've had to seek asylum in a third country," Biden said in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in 2020. "It's outrageous¹⁹. It's outrageous. It's wrong."

The Biden administration insists the new asylum rule is very different from Trump's because it has exceptions for the most vulnerable migrants, and because it's coupled with new legal pathways for certain migrants who can qualify.

Changing migration patterns

The administration is also grappling with a big shift in where migrants are coming from.

"The facts on the ground have changed," says Angela Kelley, a former immigration advisor⁹ at the Department of Homeland Security.

"We have four failed nation states in our hemisphere between Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela. That is producing a different kind of migration flow," says Kelley, who is now with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

That's an argument the White House has been making, too. Administration officials say the job has been made more difficult by Republican attorneys general in states around the country, who have sued to block many of the Biden administration's immigration policies, as well as a lack of cooperation from Congress.

"That has required us to tailor our approach, but not change our principles," said a senior administration official who requested anonymity because they were not authorized²⁰ to discuss internal deliberations.

Still, some outside observers see a shift toward tougher enforcement.

"The administration has come to the realization²¹ that it really has to rethink where it's been on handling the border," says Doris Meissner, a top immigration official in the Clinton administration who's now a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

Meissner thinks the Biden administration is trying to reestablish a kind of balance at the border.

"There will be ways to come to the country legally, but there also will be real consequences for coming in ways that are not according to those new rules," Meissner says. "There has to be orderliness. There cannot be chaos at the border."

It's the same language the Biden administration has been using all along. But what those words mean for migrants has changed dramatically in two years.

1 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

4 punitive   

adj.惩罚的，刑罚的

参考例句：

• They took punitive measures against the whole gang.他们对整帮人采取惩罚性措施。
• The punitive tariff was imposed to discourage tire imports from China.该惩罚性关税的征收是用以限制中国轮胎进口的措施。

5 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

6 deter   

vt.阻止，使不敢，吓住

参考例句：

• Failure did not deter us from trying it again.失败并没有能阻挡我们再次进行试验。
• Dogs can deter unwelcome intruders.狗能够阻拦不受欢迎的闯入者。

7 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

8 apprehensions   

疑惧

参考例句：

• He stood in a mixture of desire and apprehensions. 他怀着渴望和恐惧交加的心情伫立着。
• But subsequent cases have removed many of these apprehensions. 然而，随后的案例又消除了许多类似的忧虑。

9 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

10 advisors   

n.顾问，劝告者( advisor的名词复数 )；（指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• The governors felt that they were being strung along by their advisors. 地方长官感到他们一直在受顾问们的愚弄。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• We will consult together with advisors about her education. 我们将一起和专家商议她的教育事宜。 来自互联网

11 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

12 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 incentives   

激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机

参考例句：

• tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
• Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者，提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

14 humane   

adj.人道的，富有同情心的

参考例句：

• Is it humane to kill animals for food?宰杀牲畜来吃合乎人道吗？
• Their aim is for a more just and humane society.他们的目标是建立一个更加公正、博爱的社会。

15 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

16 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

17 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

18 anonymity   

n.the condition of being anonymous

参考例句：

• Names of people in the book were changed to preserve anonymity. 为了姓名保密，书中的人用的都是化名。
• Our company promises to preserve the anonymity of all its clients. 我们公司承诺不公开客户的姓名。

19 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

20 authorized   

a.委任的，许可的

参考例句：

• An administrative order is valid if authorized by a statute.如果一个行政命令得到一个法规的认可那么这个命令就是有效的。

21 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。