CAPAC, CHC letter calls on
Affirmative Asylum Referrals Without Interview to be rescinded.
By P.C. Staff
In an Oct. 1 news release, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus stated its opposition to a new rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security that was published in the July 28 Federal Register.
Known as Affirmative Asylum Referrals Without Interview, the rule, which went into effect immediately, allows the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which operates under DHS, to shunt some affirmative asylum applications directly to immigration court, bypassing an interview with an applicant.
Critics of the change argue that bypassing the interview process may deny asylum seekers due process. The news release reported that CAPAC Chair Rep. Grace Meng (D–N.Y.) and CHC Chair Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D–N.Y.) delivered on Sept. 26 a letter to USCIS Asylum Chief Brett H. Lassen that called on the agency to fully rescind the rule.
In the letter to Lassen, Meng and Espaillat asserted that the new rule “goes against the will of Congress, is being enacted illegally by skipping the public comment process the law requires, and is arbitrary and capricious.” According to the Regulatory Review’s website, the public comments period ended Sept. 28.
“For more than three decades,” according to CAPAC and CHC, “everyone who applied for asylum with USCIS received a non-adversarial interview with an asylum officer. Under this rule, an asylum officer can now review the paperwork and send the case straight to immigration court without ever speaking to the applicant, including individuals with pending applications.”
In the July 28 Federal Register (tinyurl.com/muhb8h9b), it was published that the purpose of the rule change was to “reduce the affirmative asylum backlog, improve efficiency of operations, safeguard national security and public safety, and ensure consistency with agency priorities.”
In the CAPAC-CHS news release, the lawmakers were quoted: “We welcome genuine efforts to address the affirmative asylum backlog. But DHS may not pursue efficiency at the expense of the statutory framework Congress built, the procedural safeguards the APA requires, or this country’s decades-long commitment to providing refuge to those fleeing persecution.”
According to the Regulatory Review’s website (tinyurl.com/37622wms), “USCIS ended fiscal year 2025 with 1,434,145 affirmative asylum cases pending. USCIS estimates that hundreds of thousands of pending cases may involve applicants who filed for asylum more than one year after arriving in the United States, potentially triggering the statutory one-year filing bar.
To read the entire CAPAC-CHS statement, visit: tinyurl.com/ytez7xzv.