Aspects of Biden asylum rule may violate international protections, U.N. refugee agency head says

GENEVA — The head of the United Nations refugee agency says he understands that the Biden administration enacted new restrictions on asylum-seekers entering the United States, but cautioned that some aspects of the executive order may violate refugee protection required in international law.

Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, spoke to The Associated Press as his agency issued its annual “Global Trends” report for 2023 on Thursday. It found that the cumulative number of people who have been subjected to forced displacement rose to 120 million in 2023 — 6 million more than in the year before.

The refugee agency noted that the total count was roughly equivalent to the entire population of Japan.

The United States, meanwhile, has faced the “most complex challenge” when it comes to refugees of any country in the developed world, Grandi said — alluding to an influx across the U.S.-Mexican border.

The U.N. refugee agency chief criticized Biden administration plans to enact new restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the border — seen by some as a political maneuver ahead of national elections in November — as a possible violation of international humanitarian law.

But he acknowledged that Biden administration ambitions to resettle some 125,000 refugees in the United States amounted to “a very shining example of U.S. generosity.”

In the U.S. on Wednesday, a coalition of immigrant advocacy groups sued the administration over the recent directive on asylum claims at the southern border, saying it differs little from a similar move by the Trump administration that was blocked by the courts.

The UNHCR report found that three-fourths of those people forcibly displaced around the world — including both