The Trump administration is making it harder for immigrants in the United States to win asylum, a process that was already difficult amid a large backlog and high refusal rates.

Under a new rule the administration announced Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officers will be allowed to bypass interviews with applicants and refer cases directly to immigration court, whose judges have been accused of doing the administration’s bidding.

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, in a statement Monday, said for “far too long the asylum system has been exploited for purposes of delay and work authorization, not legitimate claims of protection.”

“America’s asylum system exists to protect individuals who genuinely fear persecution and this rule will help ensure that resources are directed to the timely adjudication of those claims instead of to those seeking to use the system as a loophole,” he said.

The interim final rule, effective immediately according to the Department of Homeland Security, allows USCIS asylum officers reviewing asylum applications to refer some cases to immigration judges without first conducting an interview. DHS also announced it would remove references in existing regulations that say applicants have a “right” to an interview with an asylum officer.

The federal agency said the new rule, scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, was enacted to “reduce the backlog in the asylum system.” It’s estimated that 444,724 of the 1.4 million cases in the affirmative asylum backlog would be affected.

“Through the rule, USCIS is also able to more quickly identify aliens that pose a danger to public safety or national security and place those aliens in removal proceedings, where his or her claim for asylum or other forms of relief can be more appropriately heard in an adversarial setting by an” immigration judge, the DHS filing said.

The changes are yet another avenue the Trump administration is using to achieve its goal of mass deportation as it also eliminates Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian program that has shielded Haitians, Venezuelans and other immigrants from deportations.

In the wake of TPS terminations, a number of immigrants in the United States have applied for asylum, arguing that their lives would be in danger if returned to their home countries. Advocates say that even before the new rule was announced, they were noticing a worrying trend where recent filers were having their applications fast-tracked and they were being denied.

Robyn Barnard, vice president of refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First, a human rights and refugee advocacy organization that provides pro bono services to people seeking asylum, said the new ruling, combined with the current immigration policy that pressures immigration judges to deny asylum claims before sometimes holding a full hearing or sending them to a third country, is “putting people in an incredibly unsafe, desperate position when being faced with these different policies by the U.S. government.”

“Their answer to clearing the backlog isn’t to follow due process and give people a fair day in court. Their answer is to just mass deny cases and mass deport people rather than giving them their day in court,” she said.

By tightening the asylum process, the administration is now restricting even further the number of legal pathways vulnerable immigrants have to adjust their status. The administration tightened eligibility for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and canceled TPS for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including 350,000 Haitians, whose temporary status is nearing the end.

Now those immigrants with TPS and others within the United States who were depending on asylum claims to adjust their status find themselves at risk of deportation.

The new rule allows a funnel of cases to immigration judges under the purview of the Department of Justice, which has been pushing for faster removal orders and denial of asylum claims. Immigration judges adjudicate asylum claims for those in removal proceedings.

For those asylum applicants reviewed by USCIS, the officer usually adjudicates the case or refers it to an immigration judge.

The department said that the current process “allows an alien to get a second chance at asylum.”

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