The Biden administration tightens its asylum restrictions still further. Border Patrol likely apprehended 54,000 migrants in September, a very slight decrease.

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Developments

The Biden administration published a revised proclamation and a final rule tightening restrictions, first issued on June 4, on migrants’ ability to access the U.S. asylum system without making appointments at official border crossings (ports of entry). Since then, most who cross between the ports of entry and enter Border Patrol custody are ineligible for asylum.

The rule’s first version revoked asylum access whenever the daily average of Border Patrol’s migrant apprehensions exceeds 2,500 over a 7-day period, and would have restored asylum when Border Patrol apprehensions fall below 1,500 over a 7-day period, excluding unaccompanied children.

The new version cements the asylum restrictions further: the daily average would now have to remain below 1,500 per day over 28 days—not 7—and unaccompanied children now count toward the total.

According to Border Patrol data from July, August, and (preliminarily) September, the agency averaged 1,831 apprehensions per day during those months, including 194 unaccompanied children per day (in July and August). That is well over the 1,500-per-day threshold below which apprehensions would need to fall, over 28 days, in order to “turn back on” the right to seek asylum again between ports of entry.

Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act guarantees the right to seek asylum to all who are physically present in the United States “whether or not at a designated port of arrival.”

The UN Refugee Agency voiced “profound concern” about the tightened asylum regulation, which “severely curtails access to protection for people fleeing conflict, persecution, and violence, putting many refugees and asylum seekers in grave danger without a viable option for seeking safety.”

CNN reported that Border Patrol was on track to apprehend about 54,000 migrants (1,800 per day) at the border during the month of September. That would be down slightly from 56,399 (1,819 per day) in July and 58,038 (1,872 per day) in August.

A criminal organization in the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico—near Yuma, Arizona—placed 24 surveillance cameras on telephone poles, wiring them into power lines for electricity and into telephone lines for internet connectivity.

Migrants—some seeking or awaiting CBP One appointments—in Mexico’s southern border-zone city of Tapachula, Chiapas, participated in a procession organized by the local Catholic diocese. They called for protection from organized crime and faster asylum adjudication from the Mexican government’s Refugee Assistance Commission (COMAR).

Analyses and Feature Stories

In Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector, where agents have recovered the remains of a local record 175 migrants in fiscal 2024, USA Today’s Lauren Villagrán reported on the mental health toll that deaths and unsuccessful rescues take on personnel.

Analyses from the Washington Post and CBS News explained how the Trump campaign and other Republican politicians have been distorting and misinterpreting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data released in response to an inquiry from border-district Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas). That data points to 13,099 immigrants with homicide convictions on ICE’s “non-detained” docket, which simply means that they are not in ICE’s custody though they may be imprisoned elsewhere.

The vast majority of these individuals did not cross the border during the Biden presidency. Still, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) told CBS’s Face the Nation that the Biden administration “released more than 13,000 convicted murderers who illegally entered this country.”

In recent days, Donald Trump’s “rhetoric about migrants has grown even darker and more foreboding,” wrote Mark Follman at Mother Jones. Migrants, he said at a Wisconsin rally, “are stone-cold killers. They’ll walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”

On the Right