U.S. to start interviewing asylum seekers at two Texas detention centers

U.S. immigration officials will begin interviewing certain asylum seekers on Tuesday at two detention centers in Texas under a new policy implemented by the Biden administration, CBS News reported. 

The Biden administration is seeking to overhaul the application process for migrants who are seeking asylum in the U.S. In late March, the government announced a new plan to accelerate the government’s processing time. 

Traditionally, asylum cases are sent to the nation’s immigration courts, where a judge makes the final decision to approve the request. However, there is a current backlog of more than 1.7 million cases waiting to be processed. 

Under the new plan, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers will be able to approve or deny asylum requests for migrants who have passed initial interviews instead of sending the requests to the courts. Furthermore, the regulation changed seek to reduce the timeline of case approval from years to 90 days. 

"The current system for handling asylum claims at our borders has long needed repair," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. "Through this rule, we are building a more functional and sensible asylum system to ensure that individuals who are eligible will receive protection more swiftly, while those who are not eligible will be rapidly removed.”

The administration is implementing the plan at two detention centers in Texas as a kind of pilot program and will then expand to other immigration centers. The program's first phase will only include single adults and families traveling with children who plan to live near Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, or San Francisco. 

Asylum officers expect to receive a few hundred cases a month for the first stage of the program. According to a senior DHS Official, around 100 asylum officers have been trained to carry out the first phase of the new program. 

"There will be a very careful, sort of slow ramp-up of cases into this system," a senior administration official told reporters in March. "We do not anticipate having a large number of individuals placed into this process in the first weeks and months as we make sure the process functions the way we anticipate that it should."