Trump administration proposes 'kitchen sink of asylum bans,' in another hit at legal immigration

The COVID-19 pandemic is enough of a crisis for the Trump administration that it has used emergency powers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and executive orders to essentially shut down legal immigration — no refugees, no immigrants seeking green cards, no asylum hearings, and an increase in previously unlawful deportations; Trump achieved more than 20,000 expedited deportations of adults and children in May alone. On Wednesday, the Justice and Homeland Security departments unveiled a new rule that would raise the Trump administration's high bar for asylum even higher — once the administration reopens the borders.

The proposed Rule on Procedures for Asylum and Withholding of Removal would allow lower-level asylum officers to throw out "frivolous" applications, a power currently held by immigration judges and an appeals board, and automatically reject asylum claimants seeking protection from terrorism, gangs, or "rogue" government officials in their home countries, Axios reports. Applications with flaws could also be thrown out, averting an asylum hearing.

"The proposed rule is literally the kitchen sink of asylum bans and will end any notion of asylum that still remains, recognizing that this administration has already issued so many previous bans," Greg Chan at the American Immigration Lawyers Association tells NBC News. "It would close off asylum for nearly all survivors of domestic violence as well as people targeted by gangs. It will short circuit due process in countless ways to make it faster and easier to deport asylum seekers effectively denying them a fair day in court."

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The Justice Department said the rules would allow officials "to more effectively separate baseless claims from meritorious ones."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.