Facing a surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border and on the heels of a crisis, White House and Department of Homeland Security officials began discussing more restrictive policies that would keep migrants from coming to the US.
It was the summer of 2021, just months after a surge of unaccompanied migrant children caught the administration flat-footed and put into sharp focus the immigration challenges ahead for President Joe Biden.
At the time, White House lawyers knocked down one of the ideas: Forcing asylum seekers to find refuge in countries on their way to the US or be turned back. They said it would likely be blocked by the courts, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.
But nearly two years later, the administration announced a policy like the one floated among officials before – fielding fierce criticism from allies who argued the effort had echoes of the Trump era and crystallizing the shift in Biden’s approach to the border, a political vulnerability going into the 2024 presidential election.
“As a matter of good governance, we take all legal considerations into account before putting any policy forward, and the recent proposed rule reflects those considerations,” an administration official said in a statement.
One source close to the White House described the latest policy announcement, which largely bars migrants from seeking asylum in the US if they passed through another country, as “putting lipstick on a pig.”
The aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic in the Western Hemisphere put the Biden administration in a difficult position from the outset, as migrants began fleeing deteriorating conditions back home in record numbers. Proposals to reform the immigration system fell by the wayside as officials grappled with a record number of migrants arriving at the US southern border, sources told CNN.
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