We all know there’s a big problem with immigration and our southern border right now. Illegal immigrants are pretty much flooding our border, overwhelming the border patrol personnel, the resources set aside for such purposes, and the facilities already too full to take more.
According to Customs and Border Protection’s Southwest Land Border Encounters statistics website, law enforcement encountered nearly a quarter of a million incoming immigrants per month from March to June. That means that in those four months alone, the U.S. saw an increase of illegals of some 906,000.
For the fiscal year 2022, border encounters add up to a whopping 1,746,119 so far. And we have three months left still. Compare this to the 458,088 that occurred in the fiscal year 2020. It is noted that the number for this year includes over 500,000 “gotaway” immigrants who were spotted crossing the border but never caught by Border Patrol.
To put it quite simply, things a definitely messy down there.
And yet, Biden doesn’t seem all that eager to do anything about it. In fact, his Department of Homeland Security just officially ended the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” immigration border policy.
Then again, the failing president did just come up with a new plan to supposedly cut the number of “illegals” down drastically.
And no, that doesn’t mean he’s building the wall or suddenly getting strict about deportations.
Instead, the plan quite simply includes a basic reclassification of illegal immigrants.
That’s right, instead of heightening border security or increasing deportation, he’s creating a backdoor policy that allows nearly all incoming illegals to be classified as asylum seekers or “asylees.”
According to a Just the News report in July, the plan is to basically create a free online asylum system for anyone seeking asylum status in or outside of the U.S.
There are just a few problems with the plan.
Ronald Vitiello, who served as the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has been involved in the immigration system for over 30 years, says it’s a disastrous idea and one that could very well “flood the system.”
Firstly, it creates an environment where just about anyone can apply for asylum and more easily claim it.
Now, to claim asylum according to federal asylum law, 8 US Code 1158, an individual must be coming from a third-world country where they are experiencing persecution of some sort. Persecution may include “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”
And yet, for a vast majority of people claiming asylum, they simply seek refuge from that nation’s poor economic conditions, which is not noted as a form of persecution.
Now, as Vitiello explains, we can all understand someone wanting to come to the US to make a better life for themself. But, by definition, that doesn’t make them an asylee. It simply makes them an immigrant, which requires a completely different system when coming into the United States.
He also explained that during his time with ICE and CBP, many incoming immigrants tried to claim asylum who were not only “unqualified, but they don’t follow up on their claims.” So basically, these people just wanted a free pass into the U.S., and once they got in, they disappeared.
And Biden’s new system will make both applying while being unqualified and getting asylum benefits far easier for far too many.
Another immigration specialist, Julie Kirchner, who served as Trump’s Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman at DHS and Senior Advisor to the CBP Commissioner, agreed with Vitiello’s thoughts on the new system adding that it is “unnecessary” and “counter-productive.”
She explained that the US already has a working refugee system in place. This process offers the exact same protections as the asylum one; it is just used for refugees as opposed to asylees. The difference between the two, if you don’t know, is that refugees are those seeking refuge from outside the US. Asylum seekers are those who have already traveled to the US and are either at our borders or already inside.
As Kirchner says, creating the same kind of online system and process for asylum seekers, some who may not be qualified, could “challenge America’s ability to keep terrorists and criminals out.”
Additionally, such a process allows thousands of individuals to come into the US to await their asylum hearings, all on the US taxpayers’ dime. Basically, it’s just a waitlist, and, at present, it is estimated that the current asylum process is backlogged by about eight years.
So yeah, we might have fewer “illegals,” but that’s not because there will be fewer individuals crossing illegally. It just means Biden will call them something different.
What a joke.
