Trump Administration Plan Would Allow for Quick Asylum Rejections Without Interviews, Internal Documents Show

The Trump administration is developing a plan that would allow U.S. immigration officials to quickly reject some asylum applications without interviewing the applicants, according to internal federal government documents obtained by CBS News.

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Under the regulation, officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a branch of DHS, would be empowered to reject asylum applications, without adhering to the traditional practice of interviewing the applicants, if they find the cases were filed a year after their arrival to the U.S.

USCIS would place rejected applicants in deportation proceedings before the Justice Department’s immigration court system, requiring them to plead their cases to remain in the country in an adversarial setting, the documents say.

U.S. immigration law generally disqualifies foreigners from applying for asylum if they do so a year after entering the country. But that provision includes exceptions, such as cases involving a serious medical condition or poor legal counsel. Unaccompanied minors are also not subject to the deadline.

The regulation outlined in the internal federal documents would allow USCIS officers to move forward with an asylum case and schedule an interview if they determine the applicants meet one of the exceptions for not filing their application within the 1-year deadline.

But the regulation would nonetheless upend USCIS’ longstanding policy of interviewing virtually all asylum applicants before making a decision on their claims, allowing for quick rejections of cases where the paper record suggests the applicants did not meet the 1-year deadline.

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