House Homeland chairman calls Biden's new asylum rule 'unserious' and 'politically motivated'

A top House Republican say the new Biden administration rule to speed up the asylum-claims process for some migrants is "unserious" and "politically motivated."

The rule is meant to affect migrants with criminal records or those who would otherwise be eventually deemed ineligible for asylum in the United States, according to the Associated Press. 

The rule is a potential prelude to broader actions from President Joe Biden later this year that would impose a bigger crackdown at the border, the wire service also report.

"This rule appears to be an unserious, politically motivated attempt to address a significant problem the Biden administration itself created," says GOP Congressman Mark Green, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
 
Green's office says the asylum claims backlog has "exploded" under the Biden administration.

The committee says the number of pending asylum claims and those for a lesser form of relief known as 'withholding of removal,' was 398,928" through the second quarter of fiscal 2021 and that the "backlog has skyrocket"  to 1.11 million in the first quarter of fiscal 24. 

"This rule would do nothing to address this backlog," the committee also said.