COLORADO HOSTING ASYLUM NETWORK 

Question: Who is in charge at this stage? 

Answer:  US Customs and Border Protection, aka “Border Patrol”.

​

US Customs and Border Protection officers manage all 329 Ports of Entry, including land crossings, airports, and seaports.  They also patrol in between Ports of Entry. CBP handles more than 410 million travelers per year.

Question: Can an Asylum seeker request Asylum from their home country?

Answer:  There is no process for someone to ask for asylum in their home country or anywhere outside of the United States. One has to actually cross the border, and be physically in the US, if only by a few inches.

Question: Why can’t people who want to ask for asylum cross legally?

Answer: They can, but it is difficult. Border Patrol Agents are stationed well before the actual border in order to turn back asylum seekers before they can enter.

• The Port of Entry is often inaccessible. 

An asylum seeker can try to ask for asylum at a Port of Entry. Since Border Patrol agents position themselves at a significant distance in front of the actual border to check passports, visas and other travel documents before allowing people to continue to the border itself, it is difficult to ask for asylum at a legal port of entry.  

• Metering

Since at least 2016, each Port of Entry maintained a “waiting list” of sorts, allowing a small number of people to actually approach the Port of Entry to request asylum each day, a process is called “metering”. The policy was suspended in March 2020, when Title 42 went into effect and borders closed to anyone without papers. At that time, 15,000 people were formally on these waiting lists, and an unknown number had not been allowed to add themselves to it because they were frozen.

In September 2021, the wait lists were declared illegal. However, they are usually managed in Mexican-side shelters and camps.  As of February 2022, wait lists were still open in Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo only, and just under 30,000 people were registered.

They continue to wait at the border in insecure housing or the squalid encampments around border crossings.

Question: Can people who cross illegally ask for asylum?

Answer: Yes, but it is difficult….

​

Both US and international law guarantee the right of anyone to request asylum, whether they have come to a Port of Entry, crossed the border illegally, or are residing inside the US illegally, up to one year after entry.

• Title 42 denies people the right to ask for asylum

Title 42 is a policy that was put into place by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in March of 2020. It says, in effect, that the US can suspend the introduction of people into the United States if there is the danger that they introduce a communicable disease. Guidance from the Department of Homeland Security detailed that the concern was not for the health of the US in general, but specifically for conditions in border patrol holding facilities used for processing.  It has also been described as the primary tool to expel all who approach or cross the border, including those who wish to seek asylum.

Border Patrol guidance from July 28,2021

U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) continues to experience a migrant surge across the Southwest Border that exceeds our throughput capability and detention capacity. In an effort to manage current detention levels, specifically in sectors like RGV, where encounter numbers are overwhelming organic and downstream effects, USBP SWB Sectors will maximize the use of Title 42(T42) for single adults (SA) and family units (FMU).

Currently, under the guidelines of Title 42, CBP conducts some basic processing, including collecting biometrics and recording the contact.  The process takes only a few minutes before the person is expelled. Those who are expelled under Title 42 are called “encounters” in CBP data sets.

In FY2021, 1.66 million “encounters”, representing about 711,000 unique people, were expelled under Title 42. There is no consequence for an “encounter”, and people will often make more than one attempt. Removals under Title 42 are called “expulsions”.

• Can Asylum Seekers get past Title 42 restrictions?

If they “spontaneously” say that they fear being tortured to the country they are being returned to, the Border Patrol Officer decides whether the claim is “reasonably believable” before beginning the referral process to an Asylum Officer. This pre-screening is illegal. From March 2020 to September 2021, approximately 3,200 people were screened, and only 272 were allowed to begin the asylum process.