Imagine a store owner has a major shoplifting problem that keeps getting worse, because the court system is so backlogged that shoplifters rarely face consequences.
Now imagine that store owner decides to just let everyone take whatever they want so she won’t have any more shoplifting. Sure, that’s one way to go. But the store owner quickly goes bankrupt.
On Aug. 20, the administration proposed anenormous immigration loophole that will exacerbate illegal border crossings. Under longstanding immigration law, immigrants who cross illegally are required to be turned around—but an alien can avoid deportation by claiming “asylum.”
To gain asylum, the applicant must prove that he is a refugee: unable to live in his home country because of “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
Only 9 to 15%of applicants end up meeting this standard(and many of those are from China and Venezuela). The whole asylum process is so backloggedand takes too long to process, that many who falsely claim asylum and pass the first low hurdle get a free pass into the U.S.
That first hurdle is an informational interview in front of an asylum officer. I’ve sat in on these interviews. Asylum officers wind up approving over 80% of the people they interview as having a “credible fear” of persecution.
Once in the United States, asylum seekers must appear before an immigration judge in court to finish their claim. More than 600,000applications for asylum are currently pending before immigration judges, meaning many aliens wait years before they are granted or denied full asylum status. Many more don’t even bother to show up for their hearing.
To clean up the backlog, the Biden administration has proposed letting asylum officers—not immigration judges—consider the full asylum claim without rigorous review. That means the same people who approve 80% of illegal immigrants to enter the country will now be taking over the full process. We know where this is going. Most who apply for asylum will be granted it (and the benefits of living in the U.S. freely)... without investigation.
That is an unimaginable invitation to enter the United States illegally.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented public health, humanitarian, and national security crisis in our country, particularly at the border. There are new strains of COVID coming in and threatening to shut us down again.
Now is not the time to ease up the process and open the borders even more.Now is the time to crack down at the border to ensure Americans stay safe.
