In an effort to end the rampant asylum abuse at the Southern borders and reclaim it as sovereign U.S. territory, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has proposed new legislation in the form of the Secure and Protect Act of 2021.
On Twitter, Graham stated the following: “The current situation at our southern border is beyond a crisis. Today I’m introducing the Secure and Protect Act of 2021 to fix broken policies and stop the abuse of our asylum laws. The border will continue to be overrun unless the Biden Administration changes course.”
The main points of the act include the following:
- The requirement that asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle and bordering countries must do so in Central America or in Mexico and not in the U.S.
- Equal treatment for unaccompanied minors (UAC) from Central America to those from Canada and Mexico.
- Provisions for families to be held together for longer than the current 20-day limit and for them to be given priority for processing.
- The appointment of 500 new immigration judges.
Graham also seeks to reform the “credible fear standard” for the persecution that allows people to qualify for asylum. He notes that the current credible fear standard is too low, stating that roughly 80 percent of people pass the credible fear standard but only 10 percent make it through the adjudication process to be awarded asylum.
The Secure and Protect Act establishes a higher initial screening standard so that fewer people are left waiting for their final determinations.
With the largest surge of illegal immigration in more than 20 years, there is a lot of finger-pointing going on in Washington with Biden claiming it was the fault of the Trump administration and Republicans claiming that Biden invited this situation to happen when he made the following statement, “I would in fact, make sure there is, we immediately surge to the border all those people seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard, that’s who we are. We are a nation, where we say if you flee, if you’re fleeing oppression, you should come.”
Regardless of how Americans feel about illegal immigration, the current border crisis is simply untenable and decisions must be made to address the problem. The current situation is drawing bipartisan condemnation as unaccompanied minors are currently being held in horrible conditions. Aljazeera reports that in a facility of “pods” (the exact same “cages” the Trump administration was accused of having) designed to hold a maximum of 260 people, some of them are holding as many as 400.
While the Biden administration continues to claim there is no crisis at the border, the fact remains that border cities do not have the resources to handle the additional strain of so many new people flowing into these cities with nothing more than the clothes on their backs in many cases. Add to that concerns over COVID, and the word crisis is the only one that’s appropriate.
