Tightening asylum rules
In the 21st century, asylum-seeking has dramatically expanded. If asylum seekers are able to set foot in the U.S., they will gain residency and work rights, pending the slow adjudication of their asylum claims.
A system of rules that are written to protect those people who escaped state persecution now enables people to simply migrate by citing spousal abuse or even gang violence in their country of origin. In mid-2020, the Trump administration revised the asylum rules, so they would return to their original purposes.
Asylum seekers who have spent more than two weeks in any country that is en route to the United States are obliged to file their claim in that particular country. Fear of crime will no longer be deemed as persecution, not for asylum purposes.
Claims deemed frivolous can be even closed. These changes started right away in January 2021. Of course, they have upset A TON of people who work in the asylum-advocacy community.
They might also save the Biden administration from a migration surge, given that Covid-19 abates, and protect it from disastrous summertime rushes to the border that did a lot of political damage to the Obama administration in 2014 and 2016. So yes, another thing that Trump got right.
