US to Deny Certain Asylees During Public Health Emergencies

The United States will soon be able to deny asylum claims from illegal immigrants who cross the border during certain public health emergencies if they pose public health risks.

The rule—called Security Bars and Processing—was first published at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden administration delayed the rule’s effective date multiple times.

The final rule, which is scheduled to take effect on Dec. 31, allows U.S. authorities to bar asylum based on “emergency public health concerns generated by a communicable disease,” according to the Federal Register notice filed on Dec. 29.

Since December 2020, departments have amended the regulations, but the main public health-related provisions have been left unaltered.

The changes allow the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to retain the ability to consider public health risks as security risks, enabling them to deny asylum to migrants who pose a danger to the United States during public health emergencies.

Several nonprofits and faith-based groups opposed the rule, urging the Biden administration to withdraw it in 2022.

The organizations claimed in a joint statement that the rule perpetuated “xenophobic tropes that falsely portrayed migrants as spreaders of disease,” according to the Human Rights First organization.

The move to implement the Security Bars and Processing rule comes amid renewed scrutiny of the federal government’s use of public health authorities in immigration enforcement, following the expiration of Title 42, a COVID-19 pandemic-era policy that allowed U.S. officials to rapidly expel migrants at the border on public health grounds.

Title 42, invoked by Trump at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, permitted border authorities to deny entry to illegal immigrants who had recently been in countries where a communicable disease was present, treating such cases as public health expulsions rather than deportations. Individuals expelled under the policy were not afforded asylum screenings or the right to appeal before an immigration judge.

Although President Joe Biden initially criticized the policy, his administration kept Title 42 in place for more than two years before allowing it to lapse in May 2023, despite bipartisan warnings that its expiration would strain border resources and remove a key enforcement tool tied to public health risk mitigation.

The end of Title 42 heightened attention on whether existing asylum regulations adequately address public health emergencies, particularly in scenarios involving large-scale migration flows during outbreaks of communicable disease.

The newly finalized rule preserves the government’s authority to deny asylum on public health grounds in future emergencies, even in the absence of a Title 42-style expulsion regime.

In a separate development, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services placed a hold on all asylum applications in early December pending a comprehensive review.

The hold mandated that all immigrants undergo a thorough re-review process, including potential interviews and re-interviews, to fully assess all national security and public safety threats and other eligibility assessments.

That came after an attack by an Afghan national on Nov. 26 in Washington, which left one National Guard member dead and one severely wounded.

The latest developments are part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to restore and expand immigration enforcement measures curtailed under the Biden administration, including stricter asylum standards and the use of public health and security authorities to deter or restrict illegal entry.