Attorney General Barr Closes Catch-and-Release Asylum Loophole

The Attorney General issued an important decision on Tuesday that closes a Bush-era catch-and-release loophole in our immigration laws. The loophole allowed thousands of illegal aliens caught entering the U.S. without papers near the Mexican border to post bond and disappear into the interior of the United States. The AG decision closely tracks a friend-of-the-court brief submitted by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) in November 2018.

Since 1996, a federal statute has required that most aliens caught illegally entering the U.S. be detained while their removal cases are processed. Among the aliens subject to mandatory detention are those in so-called expedited removal proceedings. They can be immediately removed, with no appeal allowed.

But if those illegal aliens “express a fear of persecution,” they are diverted to the so-called “credible fear” process, where they are interviewed by an asylum officer. If the asylum officer thinks an alien’s story is “credible,” his case is transferred into the massively backlogged full removal hearing process, and the alien is no longer subject to immediate removal....

In its 2018 brief to the Attorney General, IRLI explained just how the Supreme Court ruling had closed multiple loopholes that were fueling this and other catch-and-release policies from the Bush and Obama administrations....