NEWS GLEAMS | Biden Administration Limits Asylum Claims at Border; SPL Recovers From Ransomware Attack

A roundup of news and announcements we don't want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle.

by Vee Hua 華婷婷

Biden Administration Limits Asylum Claims at Southern Border

On Tuesday, June 4, President Joe Biden signed a controversial executive order that will temporarily block most asylum claims at the Southern border between the United States and Mexico. It is designed to temporarily restrict the border whenever the number of non-legal migrants reaches an average of 2,500 a day, and it will only reopen again once that average number falls to 1,500 per day. Yet immigration numbers have been at historic highs. The Seattle Times reports that "average daily arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico were last below 2,500 in January 2021, the month Biden took office. The last time the border encounters dipped to 1,500 a day was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic."

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the standard of screening migrant protection claims will be raised during this period and noncitizens who attempt to enter may be more rapidly deported. Certain exceptions may be made for unaccompanied children, victims of severe trafficking, and those who face serious threats to their health or safety.

"This action will help us gain control of our border and restore order into the process. This ban will remain in place until the number of people trying to enter illegally is reduced to a level that our system can effectively manage," Biden said during a press conference. He also added that recent reforms in the Department of Justice, DHS, and the White House are designed to expedite immigration cases, remove asylum seekers with criminal convictions, and target smuggling networks.

In their attempts to curb unlawful migration and "unscrupulous smugglers," the Biden administration created a legal avenue through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection by launching the CBP One Mobile App in October 2020. The app asks migrants to sign up and apply for appointments in an orderly fashion; however, it issues fewer than 1,500 appointments a day, which falls far short of the number of people desiring an appointment. Technical problems have plagued its functionality as well.

Rights groups have also criticized the app for stranding migrants in potentially life-threatening circumstances, sometimes for months. In a report published by Human Rights Watch, they observed that the "Biden administration claims that its asylum rule and effectively mandatory use of CBP One will disrupt smuggling networks … on the contrary, digital metering in Mexico leaves asylum seekers vulnerable to extortion, kidnapping, and violence."

Partisanship Divides Around the Executive Order

The possibility of such a policy was first named in March 2024, around the time of Biden's annual State of the Union Address. The Biden administration continues to assert that the temporary pause on asylum requests is merely a "stopgap." They say that true reform requires Congressional intervention and that the administration is only taking such actions as a last resort, after two recent Congressional attempts to pass bipartisan border enforcement legislation failed due to Republican opposition and Democratic indecision.

Republicans, meanwhile, have said that similar policies should have been enacted earlier and that it does not go far enough in curbing immigration. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Reps. Tom Emmer, Steve Scalise, and Elise Stefanik released a joint statement which said, "Over a year ago, House Republicans passed the Secure the Border Act, which would actually fix the problem, but Joe Biden and Senate Democrats continue to drag their feet on taking meaningful action, sacrificing the safety and security of our communities."

The executive order has been supported by some more mainstream Democrats, with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying, "President Biden has been clear from the beginning he prefers legislation, but given how obstinate Republicans have become — turning down any real opportunity for strong border legislation — the president is left with little choice but to act on his own."

More progressive Democrats, such as Washington State Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, have called the actions "a dangerous step in the wrong direction." She wrote in a statement, "The American people want and deserve an orderly immigration system that is humane and focuses on real solutions rather than harsh enforcement … We should be looking to manage the border, expand lawful pathways, provide a roadmap to citizenship and celebrate the contributions of immigrants by prioritizing a fair, orderly, and humane system."

Data from Gallup polls throughout the first half of 2024 have consistently shown immigration to be among the top three issues of significance to U.S. residents, along with the government and the economy. Partisanship does play a role, with 43% of Republicans mentioning immigration as a top concern, as opposed to 5% of Democrats and 11% of Independents.

National Debates Around Border Policies

High-profile border-related issues have made headlines across the country, often taking on dimensions previously unseen. Since April 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has continued to send busloads of migrants to cities like New York, Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles in his goal of showing "the rest of America … exactly what is going on" with immigration that plagues the Southern border. In turn, cities like New York have called the influx of migrants a "humanitarian crisis" and criticized the federal government for not supporting them with additional resources.

In September 2023, a federal judge cited a lack of federal authorization and ordered that the state of Texas must remove floating fences which they placed in the Rio Grande River in an attempt to curb immigration. Abbott openly fought the ruling and vowed to take it to the Supreme Court.

More recently, in April 2024, Republicans impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for failing to deter illegal immigration, though he continues to hold the role today. In an interview with NPR following the issuing of Biden's executive order, Mayorkas blamed Congress' inability to act and the "perennial underfunding" of the DHS as causes for an inability to reform immigration legislation. He stated that the Biden administration made the decision to do what it can "within its legal authority," but that greater reforms would ultimately rely on Congress.

Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have already stated that they will challenge the recent executive order.

Seattle Public Library Slowly Recovers From Ransomware Attack

On Saturday, May 25, The Seattle Public Library (SPL) encountered a ransomware attack just before Memorial Day weekend. The disruption, according to SPL, impacted access to staff and public computers, their online catalog and loaning system, e-books and e-audiobooks, in-building Wi-Fi, and their website portal. To immediately address the issue, SPL took their systems offline until they could ensure the security of their resources and their customers, as well as contacted law enforcement and third-party forensic specialists.

Despite the electronic elements of SPL being affected by the digital attack, libraries remain open for in-person visits and special events; libraries are also able to check out materials manually through the use of paper forms.

As of Monday, June 3, The Seattle Times reported that certain virtual functionalities were still unavailable, such as access to e-books, e-audiobooks, the virtual library catalog, Wi-Fi, and public computer use, but services which have been restored include digital services such as Hoopla and Kanopy.

SPL has not revealed what data has been compromised in the ransomware attack or what the terms of the ransom were. Ransomware attacks are known to take virtual systems hostage, often demanding funds for access to be restored. In a GeekWire article, Sunil Gottumukkala, the CEO of a local cybersecurity start-up called Averlon, stated that libraries and schools are often targeted due to their lack of well-funded cybersecurity teams and inability to defend themselves.

International cyberattacks targeting libraries have increased in recent years, affecting large cities and county library systems all over the world. An attack on the British Library, which is one of the largest libraries of the world and the national library in the United Kingdom, required months of recovery time. Late last year, Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center also fell victim to a cyberattack that leaked private information of over 1 million patients, and repercussions continue to reverberate in the form of threatening emails to customers and lawsuits against Fred Hutch.

The increase in cyberattacks on civil services organizations has prompted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to propose the "Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program" in November 2023. The program was initially proposed as a three-year pilot program that would gather information from rural and low-income communities about "cybersecurity and advanced firewall services" and offer up to $200 million to help schools and libraries defend themselves from hackers, ransomware, and other cybersecurity concerns. The FCC is expected to adopt the pilot program on Thursday, June 6.

SPL has recently updated their summer hours of operation, which will be limited starting June 20. A list of available and unavailable services as a result of the ransomware attack will continue to be updated on SPL's website.

📸 Featured Image: President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order that will temporarily block most asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border on June 4, 2024. Photo via Andrew Leyden/Shutterstock.com.

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