Everyone, especially the Democrats, knows what is at the root cause of the current migrant crisis.
The migrants want a better life and no one blames them for it. In fact, most applaud their ambition to discover loopholes in the asylum laws to take advantage of.
But at the same time, we can change the laws and tighten the loopholes to reflect the new reality, which is what Lindsey Graham is going to do. Look, if Pelosi continues to obstruct on this issue she will be handing the GOP and Trump a massive weapon for the 2020 campaign.
From The Daily Wire: The root cause of much of the migration, as The Daily Wire reported yesterday, is the systemic loosening of our statutory asylum law to cover many economically motivated migrants — which is in direct conflict with the legal requirement, under 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i), that asylum is only properly considered for migrants who have been persecuted in their native countries for “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
But, under the erroneous prevailing status quo wherein a mention of “credible fear of persecution” to a U.S. border agent amounts to something closely akin to magical words granting automatic entry (and often a subsequent quick release, pending a follow-up adjudication hearing for which an alien may or may not show up), asylum claims have skyrocketed. As Rachel Bovard noted at American Greatness in October, “asylum cases more than octupled from 5,523 in 2009 to 81,864 in 2016” — and the trend has only metastasized under President Trump.
Enter Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a perhaps-unlikely prospective legislative hero. (Among other immigration-related historical deviances from conservative orthodoxy on the issue, Graham was a co-sponsor of the failed “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill in 2013.) The senior senator from South Carolina appears to now be focused on legislatively rectifying the underlying asylum loophole problem.
Per The Washington Times:
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday he will be introducing a proposal to change U.S. asylum laws, saying the only way to stop the crisis at the southern border is to toughen up asylum standards.
The South Carolina Republican said a wall and military personnel at the border helps control the flow of migrants coming from Central American countries, but won’t completely stop the problem.
“We have to change these laws so people stop coming,” Mr. Graham told Fox News during an appearance on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“Doing what we are doing is not working … the crisis has to come to an end,” he added.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee said lawmakers will mark up a bill once they return from recess later this month.
According to the Times, Graham also wishes to legislatively amend the now-infamous Flores consent decree, which has hamstrung much of the Trump administration’s detention and enforcement efforts with respect to alien children.
