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The Trump policy closing the border to asylum seekers during the pandemic (Title 42) put Biden in a bind from day 1. The policy was adopted in bad faith, w no scientific basis. The Biden Admin acknowledges that, but still faces complex reality at border 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/politics/biden-migrant-children-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
Keeping border partially closed to asylum seekers gives the new Admin breathing room, to restart & stand back up an asylum system that’s been dismantled over past 4 years. But, of course, it also exposes a searing moral (& legal) dilemma: you either believe in asylum or not. 2/
You can’t answer that question in a meaningful way unless you’re reckoning w genuinely confounding operational questions—not just of restarting a broken system, but of doing so during a world-historical pandemic. How, for instance, do you process large #s of people right now? 3/
There are truly no good or clear options. An official during Transition made the point to me that some of the tools the incoming Admin is planning to use to alleviate these operational pressures & get system going again are going to look similar to things associated w Trump. 4/
For example: pushing asylum seekers to points of entry and using a form of metering, with limits being set on the number of people allowed through at any given time. As for how immigrants, advocates, and the broader public understand temporary measures like these...? 5/
Some if it is going to come down to an uncomfortably ambiguous standard of whether they/we feel the new Administration is operating in good or bad faith. I do think there are some metrics for analyzing that. Mainly, how clear and transparent is the Admin being at every step. 6/
Of course there are concrete policies the Admin can pursue to show how serious it truly is on asylum. We’ve already heard abt some: restarting the Central American Minors program, increasing legal pathways for migration (work visas etc); working more concertedly in the region. 7/
That’s a mix of short(ish), medium and long-term policy work, which gets complicated by politics & political will (and elections). It’s going to be interesting & **agonizing** to sort out. And the human consequences of it all are real and life-altering. End/