Border Patrol Barred From ‘Credible Fear’ Asylum Determinations

Families seeking asylum in the U.S. based on fears of kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder convinced a D.C. federal judge Monday to grant an injunction keeping the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s agents from continuing to make determinations based on “credible fear interviews.”

A Jan. 30, 2020, memorandum of agreement gave agents from the CBP the authority to make determinations about whether asylum seekers had a “credible fear of persecution” based on interviews, giving them more power to make conclusions about threshold asylum eligibility in the field.

That memorandum was challenged by four mothers and their children from Honduras, Ecuador, ...