Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas came to Tucson Wednesday to extol how the Biden administration’s new border policy has resulted in fewer people crossing the border.

“The President’s actions are working because of their tough response to illegal crossings,” Mayorkas said during the press conference held on the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Immigration experts, however, say it’s too soon for a victory lap, and the changes violate migrants’ rights to seek asylum.

Asylum was first codified into U.S. law with the Refugee Act of 1980, which modified previous immigration law to legally allow anybody present in the country, no matter how they arrived or what their legal status is, to apply for asylum.

Border and immigration laws remain a lightening-rod issue in this year’s local, state and national elections with political rhetoric aplenty from candidates on both sides of the aisle.

What is the new border and immigration rule?

  • The rule, announced on June 4 and implemented the following day, drastically limits asylum eligibility for people who cross the U.S.-México border without legal authorization, allowing Border Patrol agents to swiftly remove them to México or to their home country.
  • The rule establishes stricter criteria for people seeking asylum protection after crossing the border. It also eliminates the requirement of Border Patrol agents to actively ask migrants they encounter if they fear being returned to their country. The stark policy change in accountability to ensure U.S. officials adhere to legal asylum and human rights was touted to “reduce the burden on our Border Patrol agents,” according to a June 4 White House press release on the new rules.
  • The previous asylum protocols will be restored if the border-wide number of encounters decreases below 1,500 people crossing per day and stays that low for a week. The rule would be retriggered if the number of encounters rises again to 2,500.

What does Mayorkas mean when he says the rule is “working”?

  • Dropping numbers: According to a DHS Fact Sheet, released shortly before Mayorkas’ remarks Wednesday, since the implementation of the new interim rule on June 5, “the Border Patrol’s 7-day encounter average has decreased more than 40 percent to under 2,400 encounters per day.”
  • Dropping in Tucson: In the Tucson sector, Mayorkas said, “we have seen a more than 45 percent drop in U.S. Border Patrol encounters since the president took action, and repatriations of encountered individuals in Tucson have increased by nearly 150 percent.” Overall, that makes for “a more than 80 percent decrease in individuals placed into immigration proceedings and our backlogged court system,” he said. Repatriation is another form of saying removal from the U.S.
  • Crackdown: Mayorkas also mentioned that in the past three weeks, DHS has conducted “over 100 international repatriation flights to more than 20 countries and removed or returned more than 24,000 individuals.”
  • Not so fast: Immigration experts, however, think it may be too soon to claim success. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, told Arizona Luminaria, “We are clearly in the ‘wait and see’ stage of any new border policy, where migrants pause to assess the impact of the new changes.” He said that, similar to the end of Title 42 — an asylum shutdown implemented by the Trump administration and rescinded in May of 2023 — border encounters plummeted for weeks before rising again. “We can’t know for sure whether this program’s impact will last going forward,” Reichlin-Melnick said.

What are migrant advocates seeing on the ground?

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations helicopter hovers over migrants waiting to turn themselves in to Border Patrol outside of Yuma, Arizona. Credit: John Washington
  • Migrant suffering: Dora Rodriguez, founder of the Tucson-based migrant aid organization Salvavision, told Arizona Luminaria that she hasn’t seen migrants experience such cruelty inflicted by Border Patrol agents in a long time. Rodriguez described meeting one young mother and her 5-year-old son earlier this month after they had just been deported. The woman told her that she had tried to tell agents she wanted to claim asylum, but was told to shut up. She was then forced to sign papers acknowledging she would be banned from the country for five years, Rodriguez said. 
  • More on Dora: Rodriguez knows the hardships of migrating to the United States. In 1980, after fleeing war and persecution in El Salvador, she barely survived a desert crossing that left 13 people dead. 
  • Ignoring medical needs: Rodriguez and other immigration advocates have heard many such stories in recent days, including of people who should qualify for a medical exception to save their lives getting deported, banned from the country or denied their ability to ask for asylum.
  • News for Mayorkas: “If Mayorkas said he loves this new rule, I have news for him,” Rodriguez said. “The numbers are not going to go down. They’re going to increase and they’re going to increase in the desert where people are going to die.”

Does asylum still exist in the United States?

  • Political stance: Mayorkas said twice at the Tucson press conference that the country’s asylum law is intact. “We comply with asylum law and we comply with enforcement laws as well,” he said. In response to a question asking about how migrants are returned to México despite wanting to request asylum, Mayorkas said that DHS officials are well-trained to listen for and recognize expressions of fear. He added that any individual who does not meet the new requirements will be removed. “We are enforcing the law,” he said.
  • Political backlash: Shortly after the new asylum rule was announced, 18 Democratic members of Congress, including Arizona’s Raúl Grijalva, sent a letter to Mayorkas with concerns about the new approach. The letter cites “potential procedural unfairness,” problems with language access, and worries about the United States upholding domestic and international obligations to uphold asylum law.
  • Profound concerns: The UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, responded to the announcement of the rule on X, saying the organization had “profound concerns” about the new regulation. “These harsh measures would deny safety for people fleeing for their lives. We urge the U.S. to reconsider restrictions that undermine the fundamental right to seek asylum,” UN officials added.
  • Litigation: The American Civil Liberties Union and several other advocacy groups are suing the Biden administration over the new rule, according to June a press release. The national civil rights organization, which also took on the Trump administration’s similar measures, said Biden’s policies “severely restricts asylum and puts thousands of lives at risk.”
    • Court block: The Trump administration frequently dealt with pushback from federal courts that blocked some or all anti-immigration and border policy measures the former president tried to enforce. In one case, in the waning days of the Trump administration, officials tried to push through sweeping asylum restrictions, were sued, and a federal judge stopped them from going into effect.

Looking forward: Border and immigration trends and politics will remain a key and likely divisive issue throughout the campaign season. Reach out to Arizona Luminaria with tips, questions, concerns (info@azluminaria.org or jwashington@azluminaria.org) and follow us for ongoing coverage.

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John Washington covers Tucson, Pima County, criminal justice and the environment for Arizona Luminaria. His investigative reporting series on deaths at the Pima County jail won an INN award in 2023. Before...