A new Biden administration policy has dramatically lowered the percentage of migrants at the southern border who enter the United States and are allowed to apply for asylum, according to numbers revealed in court documents obtained by The Times. Without these new limits to asylum, border crossings could overwhelm local towns and resources, a Department of Homeland Security official warned a federal court in a filing this month.
The new asylum policy is the centerpiece of the Biden administration's border efforts. Under the new rules, people who cross through a third country on the way to the U.S. and fail to seek protections there are presumed ineligible for asylum in the U.S.
The Biden administration said that the number of single-adult migrants who are able to pass initial screenings at the border has dropped from 83% to 46% under the new policy. The 83% rate refers to initial asylum screenings between 2014 and 2019; the new data cover the period from May 12, the first full day the new policy was in place, through June 13.
