The U.S. government is paralyzing asylum-seeking measures at the border due to the termination of Section 42.

The Joe Biden administration will temporarily suspend a measure that changed the way orders are processed. refuge from undocumented immigrants on the southern land border of the United States, due to the imminent end of the Title 42It is reported by the Los Angeles Times, citing sources in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The pause is intended to “ensure operational readiness,” a DHS spokesman said, until the end of the Covid-19 emergency removal policy, which limits the number of asylum applications under Title 42.

The so-called asylum processing rule, which the administration launched with great fanfare in 2022, allowed asylum officers to grant and deny asylum to immigrants on the southern border. Previously, this right was granted only to immigration judges.

To this extent, USCIS officers were given 90 days to review asylum cases.

If so, the immigrant may remain in the US without having to appear in immigration court; otherwise, the case will go to the immigration court, which also has 90 days to make a decision.

With this system, it was expected that a process that could currently take several years could be reduced to a few months due to overcrowding of immigration courts and an increase in the number of asylum seekers.

But critics of the Administration say that The pause signals Biden’s latest move to reform the asylum process and return to Trump-style restrictions on the southern border.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said the asylum officer decision process would begin again “in the near future” and that immigrants who were already scheduled to be interviewed would be allowed to continue.

The number of asylum seekers awaiting hearings in the US has topped 1.5 million, according to researchers at Syracuse University.