Broken down to the brass tacks, the uncomfortable reality is that it is not possible to make this type of change without excluding many thousands of otherwise eligible people off the bat. That’s especially true when it’s in tandem with other changes being contemplated, including a limit on the humanitarian parole program—which, while imperfect, is currently being used by the administration to funnel hundreds of thousands of preapproved migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Ukraine, and elsewhere into both the country and the asylum system without the danger and disorder of treks to the border—and an expansion of the expedited removal program. In sum, these shifts would dramatically decrease the pool of people who can actually seek asylum. Which is, of course, the point.
If that really is the be-all and end-all here, policymakers should just come out and say it. The truth is, that position is getting more politically popular as a direct result of the machinations of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. His chaotic busing stunt, along with the “critical race theory” panic and the use of antisemitism claims against higher education, now ranks among the most successful recent examples of the right scoring a largely unearned political victory thanks to the Democrats’ congenital inability to respond effectively to bad-faith right-wing weaponization of government.
Moderate Democratic legislators can tell themselves and their constituents that reaching this type of deal is a way to stop abuse of the asylum system and won’t turn away “worthy” claimants, but that’s simply a lie. They should also understand that this is a kind of preemptive capitulation, setting the tone for the broader and longer-term discussion of what constitutes a humanitarian claim at all. It’s long been the objective of Miller and his ilk to define the terms down to almost nothing, effectively repealing the right without having to formally repeal it. Immigration advocates, meanwhile, have pointed out that the current asylum and refugee definitions are woefully outdated and don’t contend with many prominent contemporary drivers of migration—most glaringly climate change.