Civil Municipal Magazine Aug 2023

12 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 8 its strictest deterrence measure to date. Administration officials have rejected the notion that the two-year rule is like the Trump transit ban, arguing that it’s not a “categorical ban” on asylum-seekers. Instead, the administration emphasizes that asylum-seekers can apply for an appointment through the CBP smartphone app and that the U.S. is accepting 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela through its humanitarian parole program. The administration has also expanded a family reunification “parole” program to include people from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia. For the White House, the southern border has long remained a political headache — one that’s not expected to subside through 2024 as Republicans seize on the border as a base rallying issue. While administration officials see promise in the plummeting numbers, they also believe the administration’s policy response is a Band-aid approach, one that can’t fix a broken immigration system or guarantee the prevention of another surge without a rewrite of immigration laws in Congress.