Joe Biden, the Cynic in Chief, has been desperate to do something about the massive influx of illegal aliens that he invited to the United States when he took office in 2021.
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I’m not going to say it was the greatest mistake of any president in American history. After all, he’s still got seven months to go before he’s gone. But sending out an invitation to millions of desperate, hungry, endangered people to come ahead and be welcome is going to be hard to top.
So when Biden stood before the American people a little more than a week ago and promised he would close the border if illegal entries exceeded 2,500 asylum seekers a day for seven days in a row, we all thought, “Show me, Mr. President. You’ve got zero credibility on this issue.”
Biden still doesn’t have any credibility.
“[Of the] more than 6,800 migrants encountered by Border agents in the Southern California border sector between June 5 and Tuesday morning, more than 4,900 individuals have been released,” according to internal federal data seen by The New York Post Post.
That’s 72% of illegals who have shown up at the San Diego border crossing who have already been released.
Some crackdown, huh?
“It’s all smoke and mirrors,” National Border Patrol Council President for the San Diego border sector Manny Bayon told The Post.
The Biden administration’s new policy is meant to deter illegal border crossers by blocking them from applying for asylum until the number of migrant encounters across the whole southern border falls below 1,500 per day for seven consecutive days.
If that happens, the restrictions could go back into effect when migrant encounters go back up to 2,500 each day for seven days in a row.
Despite those numbers, the official wording of the order says certain groups are excluded, such as those who use the CBP One phone app to cross at a port of entry, enter as unaccompanied minors, or can prove they have suffered “severe” forms of trafficking or face medical emergencies.
It also says the number doesn’t apply to migrants who are “permitted to enter … due to operational considerations at the time of the entry,” which potentially excludes all the 4,900 individuals released in the San Diego sector.
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According to The Post, citizens from over 100 countries are exempt from deportation because their home countries won’t take them back. “We have to have cooperation with the countries where we’re sending them back,” Bayon added.
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Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, says that “Asylum was never built for this. This is not what asylum is supposed to be,” she said.
Indeed, the U.S. historically granted asylum to people fleeing Communism. Our asylum laws were created to deal with the small numbers of people who walked into the American embassy in a foreign country or who managed to travel to the U.S. and then claim asylum.
Under the new policy, authorities will immediately place immigrants who cross the southern border into expedited removal proceedings, a process which allows frontline immigration officials to deport certain noncitizens without a hearing. Migrants in the expedited removal process still have access to a hearing with an asylum officer, but under the new rule, they must request it themselves, since immigration officials are no longer required to ask whether a migrant fears persecution or torture in their home country. The administration raised the standard for what qualifies as a credible fear of persecution or torture last May under the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule. The new policy heightens it further.
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Some groups are excluded from deportation orders as long as they follow certain procedures.
Despite those numbers, the official wording of the order says certain groups are excluded, such as those who use the CBP One phone app to cross at a port of entry, enter as unaccompanied minors, or can prove they have suffered “severe” forms of trafficking or face medical emergencies.
It also says the number doesn’t apply to migrants who are “permitted to enter … due to operational considerations at the time of the entry,” which potentially excludes all the 4,900 individuals released in the San Diego sector.
Smoke and mirrors, indeed.