Trump to Approve Guidelines to Speed Up Immigrant Deportations

In his recent most crackdown on immigrants, U.S. President Donald Trump is sending out new guidelines that would speed up deportations of immigrants by denying them asylum early on in the process, Reuters reported Sunday.

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The guidelines written in a Feb. 17 memo instructs asylum officers to "elicit all relevant information" in determining whether an applicant has “credible fear” of persecution if returned home, the first obstacle faced by refugees on the U.S.-Mexico border requesting asylum.

This means that immigration agents at the border would have more power to reject applicants if they deem it safe for them to be deported back to their countries, according to sources familiar with the guidelines.

The government defines “credible fear” as "a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."

Interviews to assess credible fear are conducted immediately after an asylum request is made, often at the border or in detention facilities by immigration agents or asylum officers, and most applicants so far easily move to the next step of being granted an asylum hearing for their case in front of a judge.

Between July and September of 2016, U.S. asylum officers accepted almost 88 percent of the claims of credible fear, according to official data. Appearing in front of a judge often takes years and asylum seekers could stay in the U.S. during the waiting period.

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However, under the current immigration laws those who are found not to have credible fear are quickly deported to their countries. So by setting the bar higher for the first step for seeking asylum, the Trump administration could speed up the deportations of thousands of immigrants.

But any of those who appear in front of a judge could also end up being deported as in 2015, just 18 percent of asylum applicants whose cases were granted asylum, according to the Justice Department.

Between October 2015 and April 2016, nearly 50,000 refugees claimed credible fear, 78 percent of whom were from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala or Mexico, according to official statistics.

Trump made cracking down on immigration to “keep America safe” one of his biggest campaign promises.

Just a week into his presidency he signed executive orders to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S., and for the now-suspended travel ban to the U.S. on all refugees, as well as visitors, from seven Muslim-majority countries.