On February 15th of this year, the Washington Post Editorial Board said that “Trump’s make-believe crisis is untethered from truth and reality.” This was to go with the many, many articles and op-eds saying there was no border crisis. And that has mostly continued till yesterday, when they ran a thinly veiled opinion hit-job on the front page saying that there is a border crisis. And now, they have a plan to deal with the border crisis
Neither Trump nor Democrats have a solution for the border. Here’s one.
IMAGINE THE United States could, from scratch, create an orderly, rational system to cope with asylum seekers at the Southern border — a regime at once efficient, humane and fair. It would process and adjudicate migrants in the border region relatively quickly (in days or weeks, not months or years), admit those with serious and verifiable claims, and deny and deport those without them. Catch-and-release would be unheard of; so would years-long processing times.
It would, in other words, look nothing like the status quo, which has bloomed into a crisis that has overwhelmed existing infrastructure and bureaucracy. Yet building such a system would be possible, and at a fraction of the price President Trump wants to spend erecting a wall that would do nothing to deter asylum seekers.
So, a crisis?
Unfortunately, neither Mr. Trump nor Democrats have advanced a blueprint to address the crisis. The president prefers fulminating, as though the migrant surge might evaporate in the face of his fury. Democrats, goaded into an oppositionist rut by the president’s harsh rhetoric and policies, are now at risk of being plausibly portrayed as a party indifferent to porous borders — a stance that is substantively wrong and could invite electoral disaster.
Trump could certainly do things differently, but, he did make the “build the border wall” bed, so….
As to the Democrats, they really are the party of indifference to a porous border, and have been for decades. Further, a good chunk of them are for Open Borders, as shown by their talking points and actions.
A cogent plan to cope with the tsunami of asylum-seeking migrants, mainly Central American families and unaccompanied minors, would start with hundreds more immigration judges to supplement the existing 400 or so whose backlog of roughly 800,000 cases means that hearings are now scheduled for 2021 and beyond. It would mean expanding and constructing detention centers near the border, suitable for families, that could accommodate many multiples of their current capacity while migrants await the adjudication of their cases. And it would probably entail congressional action that would permit authorities to hold families for more than the three weeks that court decrees have set as a limit on detentions that involve children. Crucially, the existence of a functional system would in short order begin to deter migrants without plausible asylum claims from embarking on the risky and expensive journey.
It is not a bad plan for dealing with the border crisis, particularly when politics become involved, and it works in its simplicity. It’s a better plan than most are offering. This is something that could be done out of Washington. For the most part, the Trump admin has asked for more immigration judges, funding for the judges, and reassigned judges to deal with the backlog. Democrats have objected. Right now, the DOJ is asking for $72 million for 100 new judges and attorneys to deal with the border crisis, because let’s not forget that it isn’t just judges, but that the illegals making false claims of asylum have to be represented.
Would it deter people showing up at the border demanding asylum? Would it deter people attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally? Probably not. Many would be hoping that the definitions of asylum would be expanded, or that they would be released while waiting for their hearing. Further, it would cost tax payers money to hold and feed people who are trying to force their way in.
A better plan would be to change the law so that all asylum claims would need to be made a U.S. facility outside the borders of the U.S., preferably the home country. Anyone who is provided asylum will be told that they must learn English, will only be provided government assistance for one year if necessary, after which they must have a job and provide for themselves and any family. Any criminal acts will see that person and the whole family deported. And, anyone caught showing up at the border demanding asylum will be turned away and anyone caught crossing illegally or found in the interior illegally will be put across the border immediately. No holding, just goodbye, do it the right way.
It’s nice to know that the WPEB has finally realized that there is, in fact, a crisis at the border.
