Senate Homeland Security chairman blames DACA and court decisions for border surge
Senate Homeland Security chairman blames DACA and court decisions for staggering border surge
by Susan Ferrechio
| March 29, 2019 04:28 PM
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The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee said an Obama-era immigration policy change and a 2015 court ruling are behind the astronomical surge in illegal immigrants crossing over the southern border.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said illegal immigration surged after 2012, when migrants were lured by President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA.
The DACA program allowed young people who came to the country illegally as children to remain in the country legally and obtain work permits and some benefits.
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“DACA sparked it,” Johnson said.
Unaccompanied minors and children in family units increased from 21,000 in 2012, to 120,000 by 2014.
The number shrunk to 68,000 by the following year in 2015 after Obama declared a humanitarian crisis along the border and began detaining illegal border crossers and returning them to their home countries.
But a court order in 2015 barred the border patrol from detaining children, forcing the border patrol to quickly release immigrant families who cross into the country illegally. Those who were released rarely showed up for court hearings and were never sent home.
The surge commenced once again, rising to 125,000 in 2016 and to a staggering 201,000 in 2019 so far.
Johnson met Thursday with Homeland Security Department Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to discuss the unfolding crisis.
On Friday, President Trump threatened to close the Mexican border to get the situation under control.
Johnson said 4,000 illegal immigrants a day are moving across the southern border and detention facilities, which are not designed to hold families, are overwhelmed.
Human smugglers and the drug cartels are using the lax laws to lure migrants into making the dangerous journey from Central America and Mexico to the United States.
“They know how to exploit our laws,” Johnson said. “They are overwhelming our system. We are in full catch and release. We are beyond the breaking point.”
Johnson said the surges would stop when migrants realize they will be sent home, rather than released into the United States where many never resurface for court hearings.
“The solution is to fix these things, where we can return people expeditiously,” Johnson said “We need those consequences so we can return to a legal system.”
Trump called on Congress Friday to “fix our broken immigration laws” and added, “We are the laughingstock of the entire world.”
The president declared a national emergency in February to authorize moving $3.6 billion in military funds to the construction of physical barriers along the southern border.
Democrats have accused the GOP and Trump of fabricating a crisis at the border and that at least as of February, border crossings were at near historic lows. They argue the migrant families are legitimate asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America who should be allowed entry into the United States and afforded assistance with housing, lawyers, and other benefits.
“The emergency exists only in the President’s head,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., tweeted last week after Congress passed a resolution revoking Trump’s border wall emergency declaration.
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