Guest columnist Keith Peterson: Change for asylum-seekers is step toward fixing broken immigration system

This weekend, the Biden administration begins implementing the most sweeping change to our asylum system in the past quarter century.

Those arriving at our borders claiming asylum, which is their right under international treaty and American law, will now have their cases heard by an asylum officer as opposed to a judge, though there is a right to appeal.

As designed, the system should produce a ruling within six months. Currently, the waiting period for a court hearing and decision has stretched to four and a half years. There is a backlog of more than 670,000 cases, 450,000 of which were added during the Trump administration.

Something had to be done to fix the broken system and the Biden administration has changed dozens of rules to reverse the Trump administration policies, some of which - the separation of families - were characterized by their deliberate cruelty.

Of course, there are critics on both sides of this initiative. Those on the side of the asylum-seekers argue that the compressed time frame will not give them enough time to assemble their cases. Critics, who want to see tougher immigration rules, have argued that the new system will encourage even more migrants to head to our southern border.

The mix of migrants arriving at that border, always in flux, has changed in recent months. There has been the largest number of Cuban asylum-seekers in four decades, fleeing that repressive country. Ukrainians are showing up at the southern border because one does not need a visa to travel to Mexico and that allows them to present themselves at our border. Given, that there have been no consular services in Kyiv and our embassy in Warsaw is overwhelmed, it was seemingly the only way. Many of these Ukrainians have family already in the U.S.

The immigration system, particularly at the southern border, where border security had 1.6 million encounters last year, is also operating under Title 42, the 1944 health regulation that was used by the Trump administration at the beginning of the COVID pandemic to immediately deport individuals, even those with legitimate asylum claims. The Biden administration, doubting the legality of the regulation, has tried to end it but, in recent days, federal courts have ruled on both sides of the issue and it continues in force.

At the end of the day, all of these things are, at best, stopgap measures. Some 11 million undocumented individuals continue to live and work in the U.S. fearful that they could be deported at any time, even though about two-thirds have lived in the U.S. for at least a decade and established lives here. A rising share of the undocumented entered the U.S. legally with a visa, but have overstayed.

The situation for the approximately 700,000 individuals in the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) system - individuals brought to America as children and who know no other country - remains unresolved. No one seems happy with the visa program for temporary workers - on either the left or the right - but every reform measure has quickly died in Congress.

Even as the Biden administration tries to make fixes - some quite significant - there is one thing all can agree on: The system is broken. However, the debate over immigration has become, if anything, more irrational, with conspiracy theories from the far right charging that an influx of brown people is all a plot to "replace" the white race. To the extent that conservative politicians feel they must cater to such ideas, the chances for much-needed reform seem to recede.

Immigration will most certainly be an issue that will be raised in the coming elections. Those willing to be constructive deserve our votes.

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.