Theyre processed quickly and either detained briefly or released into U.S. with a court date
By James Jay Carafano
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. One thing is certain: getting into the U.S. is looking a whole lot easier than it used to be. The entire world knows about the Asylum Loophole in our our immigration system. It in fact encourages people to:
- Sneak Across the Border as a Family" (real or manufactured);
- Find a Border Patrol Agent to surrender to;
- Claim to be Refugees with a Credible Fear" of Persecution and
- Demand Asylum
Having done that they can expect to be processed quickly and then either detained briefly or just released into the U.S. with a court date.
Few ever show up for that court hearing the vast majority simply move on to a sanctuary city or elsewhere and hope the U.S. government never comes after them.
A 2018 Gallup Poll revealed that more than 750 million adults worldwide would like to migrate to the United States. If even just some of them brought children that number could easily top 1 billion. Thats more than three times the population of the United States… the equivalent of most of China moving here.
It wasnt always like that. In 2012 the number was only 150 million.
Has the rest of the world gotten so much worse in the last six years?
Is America looking that much better?
Americans usually view illegal border crossing as a Latin America problem with most illegal immigration coming from Mexico and Central America. Thats been historically true and it still is.
But and here is the big but" there have always been whats labeled as OTMs or Other Than Mexicans in the mix. A small number of OTMs traditionally include Asians and Africans as well as people from Middle Eastern countries.
Last year the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 248690 OTMs trying to enter illegally. That was a record.
And of course that number does not include those who slipped across our borders and eluded capture.
We can and should expect bigger numbers this year and for as long as the asylum loophole remains in place. Experts are predicting an especially large jump in the number of economic migrants from Asia.
The overwhelming majority of OTM at the border are neither terrorists nor refugees. They are economic migrants. They want to get to the U.S. to make a buck.
Still there is a big-time security problem. Thats because the criminal cartels are just as comfortable smuggling humans as they are smuggling drugs.
Theyre more than happy to charge people from Asia Africa and the Middle East a premium to be ferried across the U.S. border. But shutting the border isnt the best way to keep terrorists out.
After all no one recommends closing banks as the best way to stop bank robbers. No the best way to stop terrorists is to find them before they get to our borders and kill them where theyre found.
Left unchecked this will become a massive global criminal enterprise.
Fueled with additional cash the criminal networks and trans-national gangs will put their practices on steroids making Americas streets not just its borders far less safe.
There is another problem as well.
As more and more migrants from all corners of the world flood into our country citizens will be increasingly angered. Taxpayers will increasingly resent having to bear the soaring costs of illegal immigration. They already think it is unfair that illegal immigrants jump the line over those who wait to enter lawfully. And they dont like to see economic migrants clogging the system so that the government cant focus on helping persecuted refugees.
While the world increasingly beats a path to Americas backdoor the Trump Administration is racing to do whatever it can to keep the door from being battered down completely. Just this week the White House issued an Executive Order with a raft of new measures to try to make it harder for illegal aliens to exploit the asylum claims loophole.
It would be nice if the government had a partner in managing this crisis but so far Congress has been AWOL.
The White House stands alone in its struggle to leave the welcome mat out while the world tries to sneak in the backdoor.
James Jay Carafano is Vice President of Foreign & Defense Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @JJCarafano.
