Expert: Legal Challenges to Biden's Asylum Block May Take Time

Robert Brodsky, Newsday, Aug. 23, 2024

"The number of new court cases involving immigrants lacking permanent legal status has plummeted on Long Island and around the country since President Joe Biden's June order restricting entry into the country for most asylum-seekers, according to a new federal data analysis. Biden's presidential proclamation, issued amid a record increase of illegal border crossings, stated that migrants who cross the border without authorization — absent exceptional circumstances — wouldn't be eligible for asylum and would be subject to expedited deportation. It didn't affect immigrants who previously filed legal claims for asylum. In New York State, new case numbers dropped 74% from December to July, while cases fell by 68% nationwide and nearly 61% on Long Island during that same time frame, according to the analysis from Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC. The policy is a change from the previous practice of letting most people who sought asylum after crossing the border illegally be freed from custody and live in the U.S. while awaiting court proceedings…. ... Cornell Law School professor Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who codirects a clinic at the university that helps people apply for asylum, said the long-term legal viability of Biden's order remains undetermined. "Immigrants' rights advocates are challenging the new restrictions as illegal, but it may be some time until a court decides their lawsuit," said Yale-Loehr…."