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WaPo: Trump mulling EO suspending asylum applications as caravans approach
Ed MorrisseyPosted at 9:21 am on October 26, 2018
If 800 soldiers can’t stop the caravans at the southern border, will an executive order do the trick? Donald Trump may issue an EO suspending all asylum grants from Central America, the Washington Post reported last night. That would effectively close down any legal avenue for their entry — at least until courts weigh in on the idea:
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Fixated on the migrant caravan moving north through Mexico, President Trump is weighing a plan to shut the U.S. border to Central Americans and deny them the opportunity to seek asylum, asserting similar emergency powers used during the early 2017 “travel ban,” according to administration officials and people familiar with the proposal.
The White House is also preparing to deploy as many as 1,000 additional U.S. troops to assist in security operations at the southern border in anticipation of the caravan’s arrival, officials said.
Under U.S. law, foreign nationals fleeing persecution have the right to apply for asylum once they reach American soil, but the executive order under consideration would suspend that provision and bar Central Americans as a matter of national security, according to those familiar with the proposal.
Such a move would probably trigger immediate challenges in U.S. courts.
The White House has not yet confirmed this — but they’re not denying it either, NPR reports. One can see why Trump might like this idea. At least theoretically, it would allow him to act with executive authority to resolve a crisis, and provide a clean and anticlimactic end to the caravan issue. Grants of asylum get processed through two executive agencies: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) in the Department of Justice.
