I Was Wrong About the ‘Good’ in the Senate Border Bill — It Won’t Curb Asylum Abuses
Shame on whoever told the Senate it would, but shame on senators if they repeat that claim
By Andrew R. Arthur on February 14, 2024
My February 5 post — issued the day after three Senate negotiators released the text of their long-awaited bill trading war funding for Ukraine for claimed border reforms — was captioned “The Good — and a Lot of Bad — in the Senate Border ‘Deal’”. I now realize I was wrong about the “good” — a change that purported to raise the “credible fear” standard for border migrants claiming asylum — because that change is illusory. In my defense, however, that amendment is meticulously crafted to look like a critical fix. DHS’s fingerprints are all over the text, and those credulous senators probably had no idea how much they would rely on the goodwill of the head of that department, recently impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to make any change at all.
Expedited Removal and Credible Fear. To explain, I first must go back to 1996, when Congress overhauled section 235 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to change the way border and port officials inspect newly arrived aliens.
Prior to those amendments, aliens seeking admission to the country at ports of entry received fewer rights than aliens who simply crossed illegally. In fact, aliens found directly after they had “jumped the line” weren’t inspected at all — they went directly to immigration court.
In addition, prior to 1996, port officers were required to detain aliens denied admission pending exclusion hearings (and had been the case since 1903), while Border Patrol could release illegal crossers who refused to voluntarily return while they were awaiting their deportation hearings.
https://cis.org/Arthur/I-Was-Wrong-About-Good-Senate-Border-Bill-It-Wont-Curb-Asylum-Abuses
