Senate border bill would upend US asylum at the border with emergency limits and fast-track reviews

JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — Nearly every day since September, hundreds of migrants from China, Colombia and other countries have wiggled through openings in the border wall with Mexico and walked dirt trails to surrender to U.S. agents and seek asylum. Some days, more than 1,000 arrive in the boulder-strewn mountains near San Diego, alone.

While they wait to be processed and given a court date, they live in tents and makeshift structures of tree branches in scattered campsites. These encampments would likely vanish under a Senate bill that would make sweeping changes to immigration laws, including allowing a border emergency authority that would restrict asylum when arrests for illegal crossings hit certain thresholds.

In addition to the emergency authority, the bill released Sunday aims to have asylum officers screen applicants within 90 days of their arrival in the country using a tougher standard and, for those who pass, decide cases within another 90 days. Cases would ideally be decided in six months instead of six years, as is common in a court system backlogged with more than 3 million cases. It would do so largely by spending $4 billion to hire more than 4,300 asylum officers who would take on the work now reserved for immigration judges.

The $118 billion bill, which combines border security with aid for Ukraine and Israel, faces opposition from Donald Trump and his allies, who consider it weak, and from some Democrats and progressives who think it would gut the asylum process at grave human cost. If it overcomes long odds, the legislation would radically upend how asylum is handled at the border. Asylum, once a policy afterthought, is now the border's dominant challenge.