World Net Daily
100+ House Democrats: Biden's border policies not crazy enough!
'Squad' joins plea to help 'asylum seekers,' who often are just economic refugees
By Peter LaBarbera
A Sept. 10 letter signed by 103 House Democrats urges President Biden to make changes that would provide even more incentives for illegal aliens to manipulate U.S. immigration policy – such as one allowing "asylum seekers" to "obtain work authorization from the moment they file their asylum claim."
The letter-signers, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other left-wing congressional members known as "the Squad," complains that the "positive legislative reforms in immigration" they favor "are unlikely this [Congress] due to extreme MAGA Republican opposition."
The swipe at "MAGA Republicans" takes a page from Biden's playbook demonizing the vast majority of Republicans who support former President Trump.
The House Democrats' letter to Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (like a previous, similar letter from several Democrat senators to the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice) takes up the cause of "asylum seekers" – while completely ignoring the unparalleled crisis that has been caused by illegal aliens abusing the asylum-seeking process by making false claims about their alleged persecution and then not showing up for their subsequent immigration hearing.
In an August 2020 press release in support of increasing the penalty on illegal alien asylum cheaters, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, laid out the problem: "The unsustainable increase in illegal entries at our southern border are due in part to the misconception by illegal immigrants that they will be able to submit a fraudulent asylum application to get a court date, dodge their scheduled court date, and then continue to reside in the United States free of consequences."
"The failure to secure our border and end fraudulent asylum applications combined with the limitations placed on law enforcement and the Border Patrol by the Biden Administration is the very reason illegal aliens continue to pour across our borders," Cruz stated.
His bill, the "Asylum Accountability Act," would punish "illegal aliens who fail to appear in immigration court by permanently barring them from gaining any future benefit under the Immigration Nationality Act." Sens. Thom TIllis, R-N.C., Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., are co-sponsors.
'Seeking to work lawfully'
The House Democrats' letter begins: "We write to urge the administration to use all the tools available to provide stability to undocumented individuals and recently arrived asylum seekers, seeking to work lawfully, support their families, and contribute to the economy."
To which "Scott," a reader at Gateway Pundit, echoing Sen. Cruz, commented: "They aren’t asylum seekers. They ARE illegal aliens. They are utilizing and abusing the 'asylum' provision to illegally gain entry."
The following are the three "tools" proposed by the liberal Democrats to help "asylum seekers" quicker work and living status in the United States:
- Allowing "asylum seekers" to "obtain work authorization from the moment that they file their asylum claims;
- "Take steps to reduce the significant backlog in the 'provisional waiver' program and provide appropriate relief to those stuck in the queue. The provisional waiver process allows individuals who are statutorily eligible for an immigrant visa but for their unlawful presence in the country to apply for a waiver of inadmissibility in the United States before they depart for their immigrant visa interview"; and
- "Establish a process to make non-lawful permanent resident cancellation of removal [from the U.S.] ... more accessible to those who are eligible."
No mention is made in the letter of illegal aliens abusing of the asylum process, in line with the Left's penchant for conflating genuine asylum seekers (who truly suffered political or other persecution) with mere economic refugees.
Andrew Arthur is resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS, a conservative D.C. think tank, and former trial lawyer with the then-INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), which is now three separate federal agencies including the U.S. Customs and Border Control, or CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
In a 2022 CIS article titled, "New York Times: 'Asylum Seekers' Are Really Economic Migrants," Arthur explains political persecution is "one of the five grounds for asylum in the United States along with persecution based on race, religion, nationality, and membership in a particular social group."
Suffering economically from the "largely inevitable economic consequences of socialism" is not grounds for an "asylum" claim, according to Arthur.
"Thus, few if any of the so-called 'asylum seekers' coming from Venezuela looking for better economic opportunities will ever be granted asylum. The Biden administration could nip the flood of migrants in the bud if it utilized the expedited removal powers Congress has given it to screen migrants for asylum claims at the border, but as I have recently explained, it’s largely failing to do so," Arthur writes.
One of Biden's many executive orders reversing President Trump's policies ended the Republican president's hard-fought policy of requiring that asylum seekers apply for that status in their own or another country, rather than from inside the U.S. Under Biden, aliens are allowed to come into the U.S. first and make their claim. That shift, probably more than any other policy change, has contributed to the tidal wave of illegals into the country.
"Those aliens are economic migrants, pure and simple, not asylum seekers.," Arthur writes. "While I sympathize with their inability to 'make as much money to send home' in other South American countries, and the dangerous trek they made to get to the Southwest border, they aren’t eligible for asylum under U.S. law."
Sen. Cruz agrees: “Too many asylum claimants are illegal aliens trying to flaunt our laws and ignore immigration court requirements. We need to crack down on people who are abusing our generous asylum system and send the message that America is a country of laws, and if you do not want to obey them, you can’t stay here," he wrote in support of his bill ratcheting up the penalty for illegals abusing the American immigration system.
"This is fair and just, supporting those who actually need asylum while ensuring America’s generosity is not abused. It’s long overdue, and I’m proud to support these reforms to permanently ban anyone who ignores our immigration courts,” Cruz said.