Trump's DHS Quietly Turning Away Asylum-Seekers, Force Them Back to Mexico Until Court Dates
While the establishment media has been racing to cover themselves over their push to cast the Covington Catholic teens as bad guys, President Donald Trump’s administration has been busy doing more work related to immigration policy. And this move will give establishment media the vapors.
As a means of handling the surge of asylum seekers, the Trump administration has announced that illegal aliens who are seeking asylum will have to wait for a decision on their case in Mexico, not the United States, reported NBC News. The move comes in response to a federal court ruling that the outright denial of asylum to illegal aliens had to be halted.
Mexico has agreed to give humanitarian aid to the asylum seekers who are caught illegally entering the United States and sent back across the border to await their hearing. Exceptions to this removal from the U.S. include unaccompanied minors, illegal aliens who appear to be ill, and other “vulnerable populations,” wrote NCB News in another report.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen had explained the policy move in December, which begins on January 25, 2019. She made it clear that the Migration Protection Protocols policy was designed to benefit both the United States and the foreign nationals who are in true need of asylum.
“Today we are announcing historic measures to bring the illegal immigration crisis under control. We will confront this crisis head on, uphold the rule of law, and strengthen our humanitarian commitments,” she said.
“Aliens trying to game the system to get into our country illegally will no longer be able to disappear into the United States, where many skip their court dates,” Nielsen said. “Instead, they will wait for an immigration court decision while they are in Mexico.”
Nielsen added that “‘Catch and release’ will be replaced with ‘catch and return.’ In doing so, we will reduce illegal migration by removing one of the key incentives that encourages people from taking the dangerous journey to the United States in the first place. This will also allow us to focus more attention on those who are actually fleeing persecution.”
Nielsen had previously explained how the immigration system had been gamed with fraudulent claims of asylum, wrote the Washington Examiner. She said that only an estimated 20 percent of the claims made were legitimate.
“The way the system works right now the threshold under law is so low that about 80 percent pass that initial interview, but only 20 percent are granted asylum by a judge, which tells us that 80 percent of that is either just a flat-out fraud or somebody who thinks they can come here because they want a job here. That’s not asylum,” Nielsen said on The Ingraham Angle.
She added, “Or ‘I want to reunify with my family.’ That’s not asylum. ‘I just want to come to the United States’ — not asylum. We have legal ways to do that, but it’s not through asylum.”
Currently, the wait for a hearing date can take months or even years due to the extreme backlog of 800,000 immigration cases, wrote NBC News. The partial government shutdown may add to the backlog because immigration judges have been furloughed along with many other federal employees.
The Department of Homeland Security has requested that the DOJ expedite the cases of those who have been sent to Mexico to await their hearings. The goal is to ensure that none of them have to wait longer than one year.
Tougher border security measures pushed by the Trump administration appear to address some key immigration problems. A better barrier helps to reduce the flow of illegal entry, as well as the incentive to attempt it.
As the incentive is reduced, so is the number of cases being heard in immigration courts. This then lessens the wait time for legitimate asylum seekers.
If Democrats truly care about the welfare of asylum seekers, this plan is one that should be supported in order to help them get through the process more quickly. If they truly care, the faster they end the shutdown and fund all those things necessary to benefit the asylum seekers, the better.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
