Yahoo Sports Should asylum seekers pay a fee to apply?
The 360 is a feature designed to show you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories.
Speed read
What's happening: In his latest proposal on immigration reform, President Donald Trump suggested that asylum seekers hoping to gain entry to the United States might be asked to pay a fee to cover the cost of processing their applications. The amount of the fee was not immediately clear.
Asylum is a provision in both U.S. and international law that allows someone fleeing persecution to enter and stay in a new country, regardless of whether that person would meet that country's immigration criteria under normal circumstances. When someone has filed for asylum, an immigration court will determine the legitimacy of the claim.
Why there's debate: Trump has called the asylum process a "loophole" in the normal immigration process that, he has suggested, allows migrants to lie about facing danger in their home countries to fraudulently establish asylum or disappear into the U.S. while they await their court date.
Proponents of the fee argue that it will discourage unfit asylum claims and offer relief to a woefully backlogged immigration court system.
Opponents argue that most migrants come to the border with little to their name and even a modest fee would prevent people with legitimate asylum claims from being granted entry.
What's next: Like many other Trump border policies, the new provisions could be subject to a potentially lengthy legal battle. Several previous measures, such as a policy denying asylum rights to those who cross the border illegally, have been shut down by the courts. U.S. law allows for a fee to be charged for asylum applications, but the rule may be stopped on other grounds.
Regardless of whether the fee and other provisions are ever implemented, it appears Trump is committed to making a crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration a centerpiece of his presidency and a core element of his 2020 reelection campaign.
Perspectives
Charging vulnerable people a fee violates the spirit of asylum laws.
"Like so many of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, these new requirements will do nothing to actually modernize our immigration system or make life better for Americans. Instead, the proposal would waste valuable human capital and talent that can be harnessed to truly make America great, and preys on those who have already lost everything and came to seek safety in the United States." — Lindsay M. Harris and Joan Hodges-Wu, Washington Post
"Trump’s proposal to make asylum seekers pay an application fee runs counter to the notion of offering sanctuary to the desperate. Making people pay to exercise their right to seek help is cruel, and probably would lead to fewer applications by the poor, no matter how deserving they might be." — Editorial, Los Angeles Times
The rules are counterproductive to U.S. interests.
"This order does nothing to distinguish between those with and without legitimate asylum claims; makes obtaining asylum substantially harder for legitimate claimants; makes reliance on public assistance programs more likely; and, by forcing desperate, unemployed people to spend money they don't have, could incentivize some of the very behavior Trump says he wants to stop at the border." — Bonnie Kristian, The Week
Impediments to asylum will result in more illegal crossings.
"The plan is likely to backfire and cause more illegal border crossings by the people most desperately in need." — Billy Binion, Reason
Asylum seekers are not exploiting a 'loophole' in the system.
"The notion that asylum seekers are traveling thousands of miles to exploit this so-called loophole is absurd. These migrants, increasingly from agricultural backgrounds, are not legal experts who have devised a way to crack our nation’s complex immigration system. They are desperately fleeing gang violence or dire poverty." — Editorial, America Magazine
The asylum system is being exploited.
"The asylum loophole is creating a crisis. The White House is doing the right thing by trying to close it." — Eddie Scarry, Washington Examiner
It's unrealistic to expect poor migrants to be able to afford a fee.
"When asylum seekers arrive on US soil and make a claim for asylum, they are likely destitute, having fled for their lives. The reason that no fees were previously required for asylum applications was because of the commonsense acknowledgment that if one person was prevented from applying owing to the fees, it would be a gross injustice." — Rafia Zakaria, CNN
These rules are about politics, not fixing immigration.
"[E]ven independent observers say there is no way Trump will soften his line now, since his position on immigration is such an integral part of his political image." — Niall Stanage, The Hill
"Trump will probably succeed in making immigration a major 2020 campaign issue, though his ability to do anything more than frighten Americans and inflict pain on those hoping to become Americans remains in serious doubt." — Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine
Legal challenges may prevent the fee from ever being implemented.
"The Trump administration has had their hand slapped numerous times by the courts, and I suspect that this time will be no different." — Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Melissa Crow quoted by NPR
