Jason Hopkins, DCNF
Immigration advocates plan to fight the Trump administration’s new directive of requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed.
Speaking Thursday before a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Secretary of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen revealed a sweeping new policy for migrants who claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Dubbed the “Remain in Mexico” plan, migrants who seek asylum at the country’s southern border will no longer be allowed to stay in the U.S. while their cases maneuver through the immigration courts, but instead will have to wait in Mexico.
Much like other immigration reforms President Donald Trump has attempted to enact since entering office, this new policy is due to receive court challenges.
“Pushing asylum-seekers back into Mexico is absolutely illegal under U.S. immigration law,” senior director at Human Rights First, Eleanor Acer, told reporters Friday, according to the Daily Beast. “This scheme will increase, rather than decrease, the humanitarian debacle at the border.”
A number of immigration-rights groups argue the “Remain in Mexico” policy violates international laws and guarantees of due process set out in the Constitution. Opponents also point to federal laws that protect child migrants.
“Refusing to process children very clearly violates the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, written specifically to protect this vulnerable population,” Lisa Frydman, vice president of Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit that helps unaccompanied children, said Friday. Frydman described the the Tijuana shelters that unaccompanied children stay in as “squalid.”
However, the Trump administration argues that the new policy stops migrants from abusing the U.S. asylum process by entering the country and never showing up to their immigration court hearings.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recorded 78,564 requests for asylum in 2017, a dramatic uptick from the 13,880 requests made in 2012. The requests have only increased, with the USCIS recording a record-setting 99,035 asylum requests — 62,609 of which included Guatemalans, Salvadorians and Hondurans — during the 2018 fiscal year.
“They will not be able to disappear into the United States,” Nielsen stated Thursday. “They will have to wait for approval. If they are granted asylum by a U.S. judge, they will be welcomed into America. If they are not, they will be removed to their home countries,” she continued, adding in a subsequent press statement that “catch and release” will be replaced with “catch and return.”
If immigration-rights groups are successful, it wouldn’t be their first court victory. In a five to four decision, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to make illegal immigrants ineligible for asylum protections.
Immigration remains at the forefront of debate as the federal government has shutdown, with congressional Democrats and Trump at odds over funding for a wall on the country’s southern border. The shutdown is expected to last past Christmas.
Follow Jason on Twitter.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
- Dana Bash appears to want to crawl out of her own skin when Ramaswamy ‘goes there’ on J6 - December 7, 2023
- As Biden’s approval ratings decrease, students criticize administration for rebuilding border wall and support for Israel - November 12, 2023
- ‘They need to go!’ Scalise and McCarthy garner votes as 20 GOP ‘turncoats’ block Jim Jordan - October 17, 2023
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
