[Washington = Kiyoshi Ouchi]The Biden administration announced on September 30 that it will tighten the conditions for resuming asylum applications from illegal immigrants entering the United States from the southern border with Mexico. The aim is to emphasize efforts to strengthen efforts to address the issue of illegal immigration, which will be an issue in the November presidential election, and to provide support for Vice President Harris, who is running against former President Donald Trump.

In an effort to curb illegal immigration, President Biden stopped accepting asylum applications in June when the number of illegal immigrants detained at the border exceeded 2,500 per day, and the number of daily detainees continued for one week in a row. He issued a presidential order stating that if the number of applicants falls below 1,500, admissions will resume. This time, the condition for resuming acceptance will be changed to “four consecutive weeks”.

Since the acceptance of asylum applications was temporarily halted by a presidential order in June, the conditions for resumption have not yet been met. However, the number of detainees per day has recently decreased to around 1,800 people, and if the number continued to decline at this rate, there was a possibility that asylum applications would be accepted again in the near future. In that case, it is expected that a large number of asylum seekers will flood the border again before the general election in November, so the Biden administration appears to have taken this measure in order to avoid providing material for criticism to the Republicans. .