Scoop: Inside Harris' plan for stricter asylum rules
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Vice President Harris plans to propose extending President Biden's restrictions on asylum Friday — and call for a new crackdown to discourage illegal border crossings, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Harris' plan, which she'll propose during her visit to the Arizona border, are part of an effort to fend off Republicans' criticisms that she and the Biden administration have been too lenient on illegal immigration.
- Besides extending policies to make asylum more difficult for migrants to quality for, Harris will promise to ramp up prosecutions of those who illegally cross the border — including potential felony charges for repeat offenders, according to two sources briefed on her plans.
- It's a clear break from the more lenient immigration stance she had as a presidential candidate in 2019, when she supported decriminalizing border crossings.
Zoom in: Three sources briefed on the plans say Harris wants to ensure that the Biden administration's recent limits on asylum stay in place longer, even after Biden's plan called for them to be phased out when border crossings decline.
- Biden's policy, rolled out in June, effectively cuts off access to the asylum system for migrants who illegally cross the border during migration surges.
- It does include some humanitarian exceptions, however.
The details: Harris' new proposal would require the average number of border crossings each day to remain below 1,500 people for several weeks before the restrictions are lifted.
- Currently, once the average number of border crossings fall below 1,500 a day, the asylum restrictions are supposed to end two weeks later.
- Next week, the Biden administration is expected to make the policy more permanent by requiring the average number of daily border crossings to remain at 1,500 for 28 days before the limits are lifted.
- Harris' proposal would go beyond the 28 days, per one source.
- The administration also will begin counting all minors who cross the border without their parents toward that daily threshold — making it even more difficult to resume the usual, more accessible asylum process.
Reality check: Harris' plan is her latest effort to move to the political center — and away from her more liberal positions in the past — on a range of issues during her presidential campaign.
- As a California senator, she once said on the Senate floor: "I know what a crime looks like. I will tell you: an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal."
- In 2019, Harris also agreed with other Democratic presidential candidates on a debate stage that migrants crossing the U.S. border should not be subject to criminal penalties.
- Harris' new plan for asylum restrictions is harsher than what was included in the recent bipartisan border deal that Republicans killed — and that Democrats have touted during their campaigns this year.
What they're saying: "Since President Biden announced new, decisive executive actions to secure the border on June 4, encounters between ports of entry have dropped by more than 50% and remain at their lowest level in years," a White House spokesperson told Axios.
- A White House official told Axios the administration had no comment on the asylum rules said they have no new announcements at this time.
