The Biden Administration late last week announced a finalized immigration rule that will allow asylum officers to impose more restrictions during initial screening processes at the border. The rule’s purpose is to expedite the removal of recent arrivals.

The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice is hoping to reduce processing times at the southern border from an average of 4 years to about 180 days. Migrant advocacy groups decried the rule, which will apply to migrants seeking refuge in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and New York.

Advocates said the new process will impact people who have fled their countries due to political and humanitarian turmoil and it could lead to deportation without due process.

“The Biden Administration must reconsider this and other proposed new rules and processes limiting asylum, designed only to score cheap political points, rather than create the long-term benefits of a fair and efficient immigration system which will pay dividends to our economy and our communities,” Murad Awawdeh, the president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement.

Federal officials said a backlog of more than 100,000 cases, insufficient resources and lack of immigration judges and attorneys has overburdened U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and lengthened court procedures. According to immigration court data analyzed at Syracuse University, nearly 1.3 million people with pending deportation cases filed applications for asylum as of the end of April.

Officials said the new rules will allow the federal government to prioritize cases and “more swiftly impose consequences” and remove people who are in the country without legal basis and to grant protections to those with valid claims. It would only apply “in those cases where there is easily verifiable evidence available … that they can consider that bar efficiently at the credible fear stage.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this step is “no substitute for the sweeping and much-needed changes” in the U.S. immigration system but will do “in the absence of Congressional action.”

Under the process, DHS officials will place single noncitizen adults on a docket to prioritize decisions about their cases. Immigration judges will aim to render a decision within 6 months, but officials said due process and rights to seek legal counsel will be upheld.

USCIS said the change will impact few people, and cited that between 2020 and 2023, 2 to 4 percent of asylum seekers who passed the interviews were also flagged for a bar in seeking protection. Between 10 and 20 percent were flagged to possibly deny them protections.

Bars include: previous convictions, committing a serious crime abroad, participating in terrorism, and posing a national security threat.

Migrant advocates said low-level immigration officers would be allowed to remove certain asylum seekers without a hearing under this rule even if they qualify for protection. Refugees are subject to “credible fear” interviews to determine whether they can stay in the U.S.

Advocates have long expressed concerns about the lack of transparency in the migrant expedited removal process and said it is unclear how this policy will be implemented. They raised concerns that identifying these bars requires intensive fact-checking and legal analysis.

“Many noncitizens must also navigate the expedited removal process without counsel. This means that migrants, who just recently arrived at our border and know nothing about our laws, will be unable to effectively argue against the application of a bar in their case,” the American Immigration Council said.

The DHS and DOJ continued to call on Congress to pass the Senate bipartisan border bill, which has stalled since it was first introduced in early February. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 would revamp the immigration system to allow the emergency shutdown of the border and to turn away asylum-seekers in response to “extraordinary migration circumstances.” Senate Democrats will force another vote on the policy on Thursday, although Republican legislators are expected to block it again.

“While the Biden administration has received immense pressure to act on the border, this proposal is clearly a step in the wrong direction,” advocates continued. “Its quest for more “tools” at the border has only resulted in a chaotic border policy where noncitizens are subject to a labyrinthian set of barriers.”