Stephen Miller Is Trying to Break the Asylum Process

White House senior advisor Stephen Miller, who reportedly once told a Trump administration colleague that he "would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched America’s soil," has embarked on the latest phase of his plan to bring that xenophobic fantasy to life. According to NBC News, Miller is looking at expanding the use of Border Patrol agents, rather than asylum officers, to screen the claims of immigrants seeking political or humanitarian asylum.

A quick asylum refresher: Under federal law, immigrants not authorized to be in the United States cannot be deported if they can demonstrate a "credible fear" of persecution or torture in their home country. When apprehending undocumented people, Border Patrol agents are supposed to ask if they possess the requisite "credible fear." Anyone answering in the affirmative gets routed to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officer, who conducts a preliminary interview. If the officer finds that a "significant possibility" exists that a person could prove to an immigration judge that persecution in their home country is likely, they are entitled to their day in court—and, importantly, they are entitled to avoid deportation until then.

Thanks to a six-figure backlog of pending cases, claimants now wait an average of nearly two years—usually in detention—for a hearing in immigration court. In jurisdictions near the U.S.-Mexico border, the wait time is closer to three. When that day comes, the news usually isn't good; immigration judges deny about two-thirds of claims, which clears the way for the individual's removal. But between October and January—the most recent period for which USCIS data is available—asylum officers found "credible fear" in nearly 87 percent of the cases that came before them, sending those claimants into an ever-more-complicated national holding pattern.

This delay is a problem for Miller, and he believes the deputization of Border Patrol agents might help fix it. Earlier this year, USCIS began training 60 Border Patrol officers to conduct credible fear interviews, ostensibly in an effort to lighten their officers' workload. But in an email sent to Border Patrol officials and obtained by NBC News, an unnamed National Security Council member hints that in a meeting scheduled for this week, Miller will likely ask about the approval rates of those Border Patrol interview trainees—and, the author says, about "when the (asylum officers) will no longer be looking over the shoulders of agents." Department of Homeland Security sources told NBC News that Miller sees USCIS personnel as "soft," and "believes border agents would be tougher critics of asylum seekers." One way of speeding up the resolution of claims is to keep immigrants out of the overburdened court system altogether.

The Trump administration's efforts to snarl the process extend far beyond Miller's cynical bet that Border Patrol agents will be unsympathetic to claims for protection under international law. In March, citing budgetary concerns, the government announced its intention to hire fewer immigration judges and support staff, despite a backlog of more than 800,000 cases. The Department of Justice has also issued a series of aggressive rulings to narrow the circumstances that could support a successful asylum bid. This week, attorney general William Barr ruled that threats to family members are not enough to establish "credible fear." Last summer, then-attorney general Jeff Sessions attempted to make threats of gang violence or domestic abuse insufficient to prove "credible fear"; in December, a federal judge blocked that ruling from going into effect.

Earlier this month, the White House unveiled what would have been its boldest, broadest anti-asylum strategy yet: a rule preventing refugees traveling to the U.S. from seeking asylum in the U.S. unless they sought protection elsewhere first—effectively banning Central American immigrants, who pass through Mexico, from ever asserting a valid claim. A federal court struck down that ruling, too, as arbitrary and capricious, but the Department of Justice is almost certain to appeal.

It is not an accident that this suite of draconian immigration policies makes life more difficult for refugees at every step of the process. "My mantra has persistently been presenting aliens with multiple unsolvable dilemmas to impact their calculus for choosing to make the arduous journey to begin with," wrote the anonymous author of the email NBC News obtained. If the Trump administration can't end immigration altogether, in other words, it can at least punish those who still try it.

Originally Appeared on GQ