![handle is hein.journals/mlro120 and id is 1 raw text is:
DISMANTLING THE WALL
Charles Shane Ellison * & Anjum Gupta**
INTRODUCTION
Between 2017 and 2021, the Trump Administration waged an unprece-
dented battle on U.S. asylum structure, procedure, and substantive law. Seek-
ing to alter long-standing legal principles and practices in a host of areas, the
former administration's efforts to demolish asylum protections were system-
atic and comprehensive. The Immigration Policy Tracking Project cataloged
no fewer than ninety-six discrete policy and regulatory changes that the for-
mer administration implemented to curtail access to asylum.1 While some of
the administration's actions, such as the decision to separate children from
their parents at the border, were carried out in the open, many other actions
were largely hidden from public view. In their totality, scholars have charac-
terized those changes without much hyperbole as the end of asylum in the
U.S.,2 a veritable administrative wall to refugees.
Despite widespread initial optimism upon the election of a new president
and some incremental steps, the Biden Administration has yet to roll back the
majority of these changes, let alone take steps to expand access to asylum or
increase fairness in the system. Within his first month in office, President
Biden promised to undertake a comprehensive review of the U.S. asylum sys-
tem and promulgate regulations consistent with our international legal obli-
gations within 270 days;3 however, that deadline has come and gone without
any proposed regulations or an explanation for their absence.4
* Shane Ellison is a Senior Lecturing Fellow and Supervising Attorney in the Immigrant
Rights Clinic at Duke Law School.
** Anjum Gupta is Vice Dean, Professor of Law & Judge Chester J. Straub Scholar, and
Director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Rutgers Law School.
1. 97 Policies, IMMIGR. POL'Y TRACKING PROJECT, https://immpolicytracking.org/poli-
cies/?subjectmatter=asylum-withholding-and-cat [perma.cc/7WLW-D4A2]. The Immigration
Policy Tracking Project (IPTP) catalogs the known immigration policies of the Trump Administra-
tion. Each entry contains underlying source documents, relevant predecessor policies, and the cur-
rent status of each policy. IPTP was created by Professor Lucas Guttentag and is maintained by
students at Stanford and Yale law schools supported by a team of immigration experts. See IMMIGR.
POL'Y TRACKING PROJECT, https://immpolicytracking.org/home [perma.cc/C7SG-HTPT].
2. See generally ANDREW I. SCHOENHOLTZ , JAYA RAMJI-NOGALES & PHILIP S. SCHRAG,
THE END OF ASYLUM (2021).
3. See Exec. Order No. 14010, 86 Fed. Reg. 8,267, 8,271 (Feb. 2, 2021).
4. CTR. FOR GENDER & REFUGEE STUD., DEADLY INERTIA: NEEDLESS DELAY OF
PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUP REGULATIONS PUTS ASYLUM SEEKERS AT RISK 1 (2022),
https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/sites/default/files/Deadly%20Inertia%20-%20PSG%2Regs%2OGuide
_Feb.%202022.pdf [perma.cc/MHQ6-72L5].
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/mlro120&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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