Biden administration to test expedited asylum screenings at border 

The Biden administration will begin testing faster asylum screenings next week for undocumented migrants that are caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Saturday. 

As part of the trial, U.S. asylum officers will conduct asylum screenings on small groups of migrants within days while they remain in the custody of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities, according to Homeland Security spokesperson Marsha Espinosa. The screenings, known as “credible fear hearings” will take place over the phone by an asylum officer.

The agency hopes that the new asylum screening will “inform best practices” to be applied more broadly in the future, Espinosa added. 

“This administration will continue to look at every tool available to make asylum processing more efficient while upholding due process and other protections, as Congress refuses to act to fix our decades-old broken immigration system,” Homeland Security said in a statement.

Additionally, the Biden administration plans to expand legal services for migrants seeking refuge in the U.S.

“DHS will work with legal service providers to provide access to legal services for individuals who receive credible fear interviews in CBP custody,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “This is part of a planning effort underway to initiate a process that would allow migrants to receive credible fear interviews from specially trained U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers while still in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody.” 

The move comes after the COVID-19 immigration order known as Title 42 is set to end on May 11 along with the broader public health emergency measures in the country. Under Title 42, authorities were able to quickly repel undocumented migrants at the border in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The Biden administration is bracing for a likely increase in the number of undocumented migrants attempting to cross the border after the order is lifted.