Barr to withhold bail from asylum seekers in latest border crackdown
By Reis Thebault and
Michael Brice-Saddler April 17 at 12:34 AM
Migrants who come to the United States seeking asylum may instead wind up jailed indefinitely while they wait for their claims to be processed, the Trump administration ruled Tuesday in its latest crackdown at the border.
Attorney General William P. Barr’s written decision, a policy reversal, applies to migrants who have already established “a credible fear of persecution or torture” in their home country.
Barr ordered immigration judges to stop allowing some asylum seekers to post bail while they wait the months or years for their cases to be heard — a system that President Trump has derided as “catch and release.”
But advocates criticized the policy change and said it would lock up people who are simply looking for safety.
“Unless stopped, this decision will result in the unlawful jailing of thousands of people who should not be behind bars,” Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a tweet.
Barr said the order wouldn’t go into effect for 90 days, a three-month time frame that will probably see immigrant rights groups challenge the ruling in court.
“We will see the administration in court on this latest unlawful & inhuman attempt to deter and punish asylum-seekers,” Jadwat wrote.
Barr’s ruling reversed the decision in a 2005 case in which an Indian man entered the United States from Mexico and requested asylum. Parole by the Department of Homeland Security will be the only way asylum seekers who crossed the border illegally can be released once the order goes into effect.
It is not clear how DHS would carry this out. ICE is detaining 45,000 to 50,000 people a day, but it is not authorized to detain children for longer than 20 days. Sixty percent of the more than 100,000 apprehensions last month were families or unaccompanied minors who currently cannot be held indefinitely.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/17/reversal-barr-withhold-bail-asylum-seekers-latest-border-crackdown/?utm_term=.15aad052fc66
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