Teaching Asylum Process at the Border (July 2023 edition)

Sometimes, not gonna lie, I wish I taught Torts. The elements of negligence have stayed the same for hundreds of years: duty, breach, causation, damage. Imagine the ease of class prep!

Alas, you and I teach Immigration Law. And with the law changing so frequently, we need to start almost from scratch with each semester. That’s never been more true than today when I taught asylum process at the border. Let my stress be your advance prep with these helpful resources!

A lot has changed in 2023 in terms of how noncitizens can seek asylum at the border. Here is what I chose to cover:

• Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans who irregularly cross the Panama, Mexico, or U.S. border are subject to expulsion to Mexico per this January 2023 White House statement. Instead, the US will grant parole to up to 30,000 individuals per month from these four countries, who have an eligible sponsor and pass vetting and background checks, allowing them to come to the United States for a period of two years and receive work authorization. (You can tie the new approach to this 2022 post by Kevin).
• As of 2023, use of the CBP One app is now mandatory for noncitizens seeking asylum at the border. Co-editor Austin Kocher’s article on CBP One is where you want to start. It’s got the development history of the app (originally intended to digitize I-94 forms and schedule cargo deliveries), its transformation into a border enforcement tool, the app’s glitches, and how it is “the result of a political decision to force already vulnerable migrants to rely upon experimental technologies that hinder rather than facilitate their asylum-seeking process.” (Here’s a Feb 2023 post on CBP One if you’d like another resource.)
• For noncitizens entering the U.S. border between May 11, 2023, and May 11, 2025, there is now a rebuttable presumption of ineligibility for asylum applies to an alien who enters the United States from Mexico at the southwest land border per this final rule. (Here’s a post from Kevin about an earlier iteration of the proposed rule. See also Karen Mussalo’s take on Just Security.)

Hopefully these resources will get your prep jump-started!

-KitJ