Trump’s tweeting is undercutting his own asylum policy

On Thursday, President Trump made the case for building the border wall with tweeted statistics about the murder rate in Mexico:

That might be a great argument for a wall, but it’s also a strong argument against Trump’s policy, implemented this week, of forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed. The discrepancy between the two highlights the need for a comprehensive and coordinated approach to immigration and border security.

At its most basic, the acceptability of forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico depends on Mexico being a safe country. Since the idea of asylum is to help an individual escape persecution and violence, their need for protection is the whole point of the claim. And, clearly, mandating that an individual seeking such protection wait in an unsafe location — indicated by a high murder rate for example — flies in the face of the very idea of asylum.

And, to be clear, the border cities where the Trump administration would like asylum seekers to wait, like Tijuana and Reynosa, are experiencing the rising violent crime cited in his tweet.

That, of course, is only one of many objections to the “wait in Mexico” plan. Indeed the whole idea of shipping asylum seekers to Mexico is based on dubious legal justification: Although a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act does authorize the return of migrants arriving at legal ports of entry to the country they came from as they wait for deportation proceedings, that law does not apply to asylum seekers who pass a credible fear interview and are entitled to separate legal protections under international laws.

Besides, sending asylum seekers back to Mexico presents a whole host of other legal concerns, including when and how deported asylum seekers would receive notices of court dates, whether they would have access to attorneys, and how due process would be guaranteed.

The solution to this dilemma of poorly thought-out and contradictory immigration policies and competing justifications is a comprehensive approach to immigration, rather than a dogmatic focus on particular and disjointed changes to existing practices.

If Trump and his administration had even the basic framework of an immigration plan, they would realize the pitfalls of arguing that Mexico is both a safe place for asylum seekers to wait and a violent place in need of a wall to keep Americans safe.

Those are contradictions that the White House must solve. And it should do so quickly — the first asylum seekers have already been sent back to the very place that Trump made quite clear is unsafe.