House GOP Offers Border Crisis Solutions – Will Sound Policies Prevail?

Authored by Chad Wolf via RealClear Wire,

To seemingly every American except Biden administration officials, there is an ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border. In just 26 months, the Biden administration has allowed approximately 4 million illegal aliens into American communities – a number larger than the population of the city of Los Angeles. When confronted with these realities, administration officials have continuously downplayed the situation and offered numerous excuses, including blaming the previous administration and falsely claiming they need new laws to solve the problem.

However, the truth is that ample authority already exists to implement robust policies that discourage human traffickers from bringing illegal immigrants across the border and impose meaningful consequences on anybody who disregards the rule of law. This is exactly what we accomplished in the Trump administration. Unfortunately, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas refuses to use his discretionary authority to secure the border, so House Republicans are calling the Biden administration’s bluff by introducing the Border Security and Enforcement Act, legislation designed to secure the border, end human trafficking, and defeat the cartels.

The Biden administration would have the American people believe that border security simply means hiring more personnel to process migrants faster. But I believe border security requires a combination of building the physical border wall system, enforcing current immigration law, and reforming our broken asylum system. If you believe that the heavily exploited asylum system works just fine, then you accept the status quo and will likely oppose this border security package. However, if you think changes are needed, as I do, you should welcome this effort to end asylum fraud and the exploitation of vulnerable migrants.

Here’s what’s in the bill and why I believe it’s a good first step.

This seminal legislation curbs abuse of the asylum system by raising the standard for establishing credible fear. And for those who do pass the standard, it mandates detention or resumption of the highly successful Remain in Mexico policy. Currently, the asylum system is easily exploited by economic migrants and trafficking networks because the initial screening process for illegal aliens apprehended at the border – known as the credible fear interview – is easily passed, even with the most dubious of asylum claims. Under Biden administration policies, those who establish credible fear – around 80% of migrants – are released into American communities even though fewer than 15% will ultimately qualify for asylum. This incentivizes asylum fraud as the easiest ticket into the U.S. while delaying the ability to grant humanitarian relief to those persecuted migrants who are entitled to it under the law. The result of these provisions will be fewer bogus claims clogging up the immigration court system and a higher percentage – but lower total number – of aliens who are granted asylum after passing the credible fear test. It will also reduce the time between when an alien is apprehended at the border and when they receive humanitarian relief.

The House Judiciary Committee is also seeking to end the cruel Biden administration policies that have incentivized the exploitation of the most vulnerable migrants. Various legal loopholes make it difficult to promptly return unaccompanied alien children unless they are Mexican or Canadian. The Biden administration has recklessly implemented policies to quickly hand these migrant kids over to sponsors without vetting them to the degree you saw during the Trump presidency. This has created the horrific yet preventable scenario of exploited children being handed off by the federal government to another trafficker who subjects these minors to a dark life of sex slavery and debt bondage. The border bill also closes this loophole that has traumatized untold hundreds of thousands of migrant children over the years. Another loophole has minimized the enforcement consequences against migrant families apprehended at the border. What results is a nefarious cottage industry where bad actors “recycle” migrant children to create fraudulent families to take advantage of being allowed into American communities. The border legislation ends this heinous practice.

Additionally, the committee’s bill reins in the parole authority that DHS Secretary Mayorkas is exploiting to hide the extent of the border crisis. Parole is supposed to be a narrow authority that allows the DHS secretary to allow a visa-less or inadmissible alien into the U.S., but only on a case-by-case basis for either urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Instead, Secretary Mayorkas is abusing this authority by creating unlawful nationality-based parole programs that redirect illegal aliens from the border to ports of entry with the benefit to the administration of no longer showing up in the monthly border apprehension numbers. The Border Security and Enforcement Act will put an end to this illegal use of the parole authority and prevent future administrations from circumventing the eligibility requirements established by Congress for legal immigration visa categories.

The Judiciary Committee is offering workable solutions to solve the crisis created by the Biden administration’s failed border strategy. Will the administration pivot and embrace this legislation or continue to place politics over the sound policies the American people deserve?

Chad Wolf is the former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and executive director and chair of the Center for Homeland Security and Immigration at the America First Policy Institute.