It is a tragedy that America’s generous asylum system is being so callously exploited to twist a beacon of freedom for the oppressed of the world into a backdoor for illegal immigration.
Asylum is not immigration. At least, it’s not supposed to be. Asylum is a tradition that began in Europe and has carried over to the United States, which permits people who face death and persecution in their home countries to seek refuge.
In the old days, it would mainly apply to religious or political dissenters. But since World War II, the concept has been expanded to allow people who face many types of persecution to find refuge while they wait for the danger to pass. This is the key — they should eventually return to their home of origin once they are no longer unsafe.
America’s asylum policies, established most recently in 1980 by the Immigration and Nationality Act, are particularly generous, but they’re also strictly defined. Applicants must prove that they face persecution based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
Those are the only things that can make someone eligible for asylum. Being poor, coming from a crime-ridden country, or just desiring a better life in America does not qualify. We have a legal immigration system to accommodate such people. Those who choose to ignore that system, break our laws, and illegally cross our border are illegal aliens, plain and simple. Democrats can balk at calling someone an “illegal,” but this is just stating a fact about their status that is true.
Even with Democrat-appointed immigration judges steadily stretching the definition of “persecuted social group” to include such nonsensical categories as “those likely to be recruited by gangs” and “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship,” the number of legitimate asylum claims is still distinctly small.
On average, only about 25,000 people are granted asylum each year, nearly half of whom receive “defensive” asylum determinations, meaning an immigration judge overturned an initial rejection by immigration officials. Moreover, that figure includes asylum seekers from around the world, not just the ones at the southern border.
Meanwhile, just last month, 90,000 people (most of them from Central American countries with no active wars or systematic persecutions) either turned themselves in or were caught crossing the southern border and told the Border Patrol that they were claiming asylum.
The notion that even a significant minority of these people are legitimate asylum seekers is a ridiculous fiction promoted by left-wing activist groups that simply want to increase the number of illegal aliens in the United States.
These groups have found the perfect formula to exploit loopholes in our immigration system.
First, they teach illegal immigrants, whose numbers are projected to exceed 1.2 million this year alone, the “magic words” to tell our Customs and Border Patrol officers: “I fear for my life in my home country.”
Despite recent efforts to train officers to identify and reject migrants who obviously don’t qualify for asylum, five out of every six claimants still have to be referred to the immigration court system for a final determination. With a backlog of 830,000 cases, it will take years before a court gets around to sorting out whether a given claim is fraudulent or legitimate.
Second, migrants are told to bring children with them. Because of the 1997 Flores settlement, children cannot be detained for longer than 20 days. To avoid “family separation,” migrants who subject children to the arduous trek across our southern border must be released into the United States while their asylum claims await adjudication.
We can’t hold them, we can’t try them, and we can’t send them back. We simply have to let them into America.
It’s the perfect crime.
Total apprehension figures are at their highest level in more than a decade, but the crisis is very different today, with 90 percent or more of those apprehended claiming asylum.
This flood of fake asylum seekers, many with children in tow who may or may not be their actual offspring, is the single greatest factor fueling the humanitarian and security crisis at the border.
Because of the absurd “catch-and-release” system foisted on us by the federal judiciary’s refusal to reconsider the Flores settlement, most of these pretenders will be released into American communities, even though the vast majority of their claims are almost certainly fake.
Falsely claiming asylum is a crime. The migrants in these caravans are not only illegal aliens, they’re also fraudsters, as are the lawyers who make a living helping them abuse the generosity of our immigration system.
This state of affairs cannot continue. If the asylum loophole is allowed to obviate our ability to enforce duly-enacted immigration laws, we’ll effectively have the open borders that most Democrats secretly support and that some are finally starting to admit is their ultimate goal.
It’s a tragedy for those American communities that endure the hardship of crime, violence, and drugs as a result. Most importantly though, this asylum farce is a tragedy for our national sovereignty and our principles of freedom, justice, and the rule of law.
Jenna Ellis (@realJennaEllis) is a member of the Trump 2020 Advisory Board. She is a constitutional law attorney, radio host, and the author of The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.
