How is Biden’s asylum restriction order different from past Trump actions?

With the aim of addressing the immigration crisis that is being experienced on the country’s southern border, President Biden has signed an executive order to close the border of United States to immigrants seeking to cross without authorization including those seeking asylum. Currently, the country has an asylum law, which allows foreigners to request humanitarian protection even if they have crossed illegally, which has perpetuated the crisis on the border.

According to government figures, in recent months, the system accumulated more than three million unprocessed requests, so the new measure will provide temporary relief to move forward with current cases. In addition, at the same time pause asylum applications, the country will be able to accelerate the deportation process of undocumented migrants without processing their asylum applications.

According to the order, the law will go into effect when the Secretary of State of the United States determines that the average number of illegal crossings per day exceeds 2,500 people and can be removed 14 days after the average number of daily crossings drops to 1,500 people. According to the latest government data in recent weeks illegal crossings along the southern border have averaged 3,500 meaning the measure could go into effect immediately.

Since the order restricts asylum protection, criticism and comparisons with Trump’s former positions were immediate. As well because it is the most restrictive immigration policy on the part of any Democratic president. However, Biden’s measure is still far from resembling Trump’s policies.

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How is Biden's asylum restriction order different from past Trump actions?

Despite being the most restrictive immigration policy in modern Democratic history, Biden’s executive order differs from Trump’s positions by including “narrow humanitarian exceptions,” as expressed by a White House official to Univisión.

“The Trump administration attacked almost every facet of the immigration system, and did so in a shameful and inhumane way,” he explained. “[Biden’s] order does not prohibit people’s access based on their religion, it will not separate children from their mothers, there are also narrow humanitarian exceptions (…). The actions of the Trump administration did not include these exceptions,” the representative of the Biden administration concluded.

For his part, Biden emphasized the differences between him and his opponent for the presidency of the country by pointing out that he “will never demonize immigrants” as Trump did.

”I will never refer to immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of a country.  And further, I’ll never separate children from their families at the border,” he said detailing his executive order. “To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now,” he pointed out.

During his presidential term, Trump adopted controversial immigration policies, including the construction of a wall between Mexico and the United States, a ban on issuing visas to citizens from seven countries, and his attempt to end the Deferred Action Program for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).