Mayorkas says some migrants “try to game” the U.S. asylum system

El Paso, Texas – In an interview with CBS News, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said some migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border are trying to “cheat” the US asylum system, echoing a statement often made by Republicans , but rarely voiced by Biden administration officials.

“The reality is that some people do try to game the system,” Mayorkas told CBS News in El Paso last Thursday. “This doesn’t concern everyone we encounter, but there is an element of it, and we deal with it accordingly.”

Mayorkas made the comment in response to a question about concerns some Americans have expressed about the situation at the southern border, where U.S. authorities have reported record levels of migrant apprehensions over the past three years. Immigration has become one of President Biden’s most controversial issues, as well as one of the main concerns of voters preparing for the November presidential elections.

For years, Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, accused migrants from cheating or abusing the U.S. asylum process to remain in the country indefinitely, arguing that asylum restrictions or bans need to be enacted to dissuade those who do not qualify from presenting weak or nonexistent cases.

However, when talking about reforming the U.S. asylum system, Democrats and Biden administration officials like Mayorkas have mostly talked about the need to speed up the processing of claims, quickly grant asylum to those who qualify for protection, and deport those who don’t.

U.S. law allows migrants physically on U.S. soil to apply for asylum even if they entered the country illegally. But applicants must prove that they are fleeing persecution because of their nationality, race, religion, political opinions or membership of a social group. Many migrants who initially apply for asylum end up not being able to reach the legal limit to receive it, government numbers Show.

During the interview last week, Mayorkas said that border security proposal he helped broker a small, bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate “would have equipped us with more tools to deal with those individuals seeking to game the system.”

The legislation, which failed twice due to insufficient Republican support, would raise the threshold for passing initial asylum interviews and create presidential power to end asylum processing between ports of entry when illegal border crossings increase.

“We will direct traffic to our ports of entry in an orderly manner,” Mayorkas said of the bill, which would preserve asylum processing at official border crossings when presidential “shutdown” authority is triggered or invoked.

The Biden administration and Mayorkas have faced a wave of criticism from Republican lawmakers over unprecedented levels of migration to the U.S. southern border in recent years. Mayorkas has became the first Cabinet official to be impeached since the 1870s in March, when House Republicans accused him of violating the public trust and failing to fully enforce federal immigration laws.

Mayorkas said the accusation that Biden administration policy encouraged desperate migrants to travel to the U.S. is “false.”

“The reasons why people leave their home countries are those we are all too familiar with: extraordinary poverty, violence, extreme weather events, corruption, repression by authoritarian regimes. These reasons and more,” Mayorkas said.

Although Biden took office promising to “restore” the asylum system, his administration embraced some limits on asylum, including a rule that presumes migrants are ineligible for refuge if they are unable to seek protection in a third country. Biden is also considering executive action that would seek to suspend asylum processing when there is an influx of illegal entries at the border.

Migrant crossings along the US-Mexico border knocked down has risen more than 50% this month since hitting an all-time high in December, a trend that U.S. officials have said stems largely from Mexico’s efforts to stop migrants and the Biden administration’s increase in deportations.