Biden’s alleged anti-asylum plan revives failed Trump-era policy and violates international law, critics warn

President Joe Biden’s reported plan to restrict the right to claim asylum at the US-Mexico border has alarmed members of Congress and civil and humanitarian rights groups who fear the administration could be in breach of international law.

The president is reportedly mulling executive action to block people who cross the southern border without legal permission from claiming asylum once inside the US, upending guarantees that protect asylum rights for people on US soil.

Such a proposal, which would bypass Congress, would mirror an illegal Trump-era measure that a federal judge had previously rejected as an unlawful attempt to “rewrite” the nation’s immigration laws to “impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden.”

Mr Biden’s proposed order would reportedly invoke Section 212(f) of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to suspend immigration for anyone determined to be “detrimental to the interests of the United States” – the same authority Donald Trump used to unilaterally ban immigrants from majority-Muslim countries, which was later struck down in court.

The Biden administration also would reportedly raise the standards for border agents’ “credible fear” screenings for people seeking asylum and establish a “last in, first out” policy for deportations.

“The clear intention behind President Biden’s newest proposed deterrence policy is to create so much fear, pain, and suffering at the border that vulnerable communities abandon their right to seek asylum and instead return to face the violence they are fleeing,” according to Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights with Amnesty International USA.

The changes would “undoubtedly violate both US and international human