In his ongoing quest to “Make America White Again” by speeding up the mass deportation of brown people, Donald Trump’s administration has “quietly” toughened up the criteria for vulnerable people seeking asylum in the US, a move that could affect the thousands of Central American women and children who flee gang violence and death in their home countries annually:

The issue at stake is what's known as "credible fear." When an immigrant arrives at the US without authorization to enter, he or she can make a claim that he or she is fleeing persecution or torture, and thus is entitled to asylum in the US under the law. Eventually, an immigration judge decides whether or not a person is entitled to asylum. But the first step is an interview with an asylum officer, who determines whether the person has a credible fear of persecution or torture and thus can continue in the immigration courts.

According to the CNN report, more than 73,000 asylum seekers were allowed to pursue their cases during the 2016 fiscal year. But because hearings before an immigration judge can sometimes be several years away due to backlogs, many of these families end up building lives in the US as they wait for their day in court—something the anti-immigrant crowd has long despised. The new policies—distributed to asylum officers “without the fanfare of Trump's executive orders and implementation guidance” notes CNN—are just what they’ve been waiting for: