Thread: White House Decries Loopholes Driving Border Crisis

White House Decries Loopholes Driving Border Crisis

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Published: Thu, May 31^st 2018 @ 12:49 pm EDT

During a conference call for the press this week, the White House called for a bipartisan congressional effort to close loopholes driving a new border crisis. Assistant DHS Secretary Jonathan Hoffman said “our immigration system is clearly being gamed by those who are aware of the loopholes and shortcomings of our system…DHS is unable to address these loopholes because of a failure by Congress to act.”
Hoffman said Congress must fix:

• The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Prevention Reauthorization Act, which allows the release of trafficked unaccompanied alien children (UACs) from non-contiguous countries (e.g., Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador);

• The Flores Settlement Agreement, a court ruling that limits DHS' detention of alien minors to 20 days before they must be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services for placement;

• The overly broad definition of “credible fear,” which eases the entry of those claiming asylum; and

• The Zadvydas ruling, which requires the release of deportees from countries that refuse their repatriation.

As evidence of the extent of the border crisis, Hoffman cited a tripling in the number of those entering the U.S. illegally over last year, apprehensions exceeding 50,000 for the second month in a row, a 315 percent increase over last year of individuals using children to pose as family units to gain entry, and a 1700 percent increase in asylum claims from 2008 to 2016. Hoffman said that while 80 percent pass credible fear screening, only about 20 percent are granted asylum before a federal judge.

White House Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller stressed the need for change, saying:

“(T)he humane and compassionate thing to do to help legitimate asylum seekers would be to drain the fraud and corruption and abuse from the system. But Democrats oppose doing that. Their policy solution is to simply continue to automatically release family units and minors who show up at the border, never to be heard or seen from in again in many cases, which is truly open borders. And in order to effectuate their open borders agenda, they are perpetuating a system that brings immense profit to some of the most vicious and horrible criminal organizations in the world, and are responsible for the trade in child smuggling.

“So when you want to talk about what's cruel and what's inhumane, we should talk about the consequence of loopholes that make it almost impossible to remove individuals showing up in our country illegally, therefore driving massive numbers to take the dangerous trek, leading to more instability in sending countries; leading to more instability in receiving communities; and contributing to the rise of very dangerous transnational smuggling organizations.

“(T)here are life-and-death consequences to these loopholes. The most obvious example, of course, being how MS-13 has taken advantage of these loopholes. They gain footholds in U.S. communities like Long Island. And I would ask any members of Congress who want to maintain the status quo whether their constituents or their neighbors in their communities would favor MS-13 getting a stronghold where they live.”

https://www.numbersusa.com/news/whit...-border-crisis

Tell Jeff Sessions about it. He was in the US Senate when all this crap was passed. Make him fix it. Tell him to get his butt over to Congress and FIX IT. If he can't do that, then find another interpretation like every other decent lawyer in the world does and defend it.

Originally Posted by Judy

Tell Jeff Sessions about it. He was in the US Senate when all this crap was passed. Make him fix it. Tell him to get his butt over to Congress and FIX IT. If he can't do that, then find another interpretation like every other decent lawyer in the world does and defend it.

You're attempt at blaming everything on AG Jeff Sessions is so transparent. Striking out at Sessions simply because he rightfully recused himself from the Trump collusion probe is so wrongheaded. Sessions is doing everything in his power to correct what he can. It's way past time you start throwing some of the blame where it rightfully belongs. Sessions shouldn't be your catch all for all problems concerning border security and immigration. Perhaps you would feel better if Janet Napolitano, Holder or Lynch were still U.S. Attorney General?

I'm upset with Sessions because he lets them in to detain them at our expense and prosecute them at our expense when most Americans don't want any person in this government letting them in to begin with. Makes no sense to do this, let them in to detain them and prosecute them which costs billions and billions of dollars and years and years of time when all you have to do is just deny entry at the border and if you catch them sneaking in across the border, throw them back over the border. This is all within the legal powers and duties of the Executive Branch.

Originally Posted by Judy

I'm upset with Sessions because he lets them in to detain them at our expense and prosecute them at our expense when most Americans don't want any person in this government letting them in to begin with. Makes no sense to do this, let them in to detain them and prosecute them which costs billions and billions of dollars and years and years of time when all you have to do is just deny entry at the border and if you catch them sneaking in across the border, throw them back over the border. This is all within the legal powers and duties of the Executive Branch.

You're being very disingenuous. This is just your latest excuse for crucifying Sessions. You've been grinding your ax against him every since Trump started directing his whining tweets at him.

You're also being less than honest on your details of why you're attacking him now. Sessions isn't allowing everyone in so he can prosecute them. It's not the Department of Justices job to patrol the border and allow or disallow anyone in. He is prosecuting the cases sent to him by DHS. These are illegals that have already crossed the border illegally and reentries. You're conflating the duties and responsibilities of various departments within the executive branch on purpose because the truth doesn't align with your attacks.

The only folks being allowed in are asylum seekers. That is Secretary Neilsen's (DHS) responsibility, not AG Sessions (DOJ). You're purposely attempting to obfuscate the issue by giving out misinformation solely in the hopes people will support your excessive attacks on Sessions. I'm not buying it and neither should anyone else that is paying attention.

I am so glad you raised the point about who is actually responsible for stopping illegal immigration, and yes, it is the US Department of Homeland Security, NOT the US Department of Justice. The only lawful responsibility the US DOJ has with regards to illegal immigration is issuing Deportation Orders. Due to the complete failure of the US DOJ to promptly and responsibly handle their little role in illegal immigration that has resulted in a massive back-log of illegal aliens waiting in our country for years most of them free as birds for their deportation hearings, I will repeat my recommendation that this truly perfunctory job of issuing a Deportation Order be moved from the US DOJ back to the US Department of Homeland Security where it used to be and where it belongs.

I hope everyone is paying attention, because this is urgent, more urgent than the wall, more urgent than any single 1 step we can ask for.

Judy wrote (excerpt):

I am so glad you raised the point about who is actually responsible for stopping illegal immigration, and yes, it is the US Department of Homeland Security, NOT the US Department of Justice. The only lawful responsibility the US DOJ has with regards to illegal immigration is issuing Deportation Orders. Due to the complete failure of the US DOJ to promptly and responsibly handle their little role in illegal immigration that has resulted in a massive back-log of illegal aliens waiting in our country for years most of them free as birds for their deportation hearing

And AG Sessions is doing everything possible to combat that problem ....... so what's your beef! We're in a new administration now, Obama, Napolitano, Holder and Lynch are out, Trump and Sessions are in. Get used to it and let Sessions do his work. The constant whining is not very becoming. Just saying .....

My beef is a 670,000 illegal alien and growing every day BACKLOG in the US DOJ on deporting illegal aliens that we've already caught or hunted down, arrested, examined, investigated and determined are here illegally who need a deportation order so we can get them out of the country. DOJ is not the proper department to issue these Deportation Orders. Deportation Orders are a very simple, administrative rubber stamp process for people who have already been investigated and determined by the best authorities in DHS to be in our country illegally. We do not want to pay expensive judges or anyone else to drag this process out for years and years and years so long in fact that their rights are violated while here and the courts release them back into the country from detainment. We only have beds for 40,000 at a time yet we have 670,000 of them waiting for deportation hearings, which under DOJ rules, they can appeal and buy more years with.

Someone posted an article from Breitbart that said that 670,000 number is actually 1,000,000. That's more illegal aliens, the worst of the worst, than there are DACAs!!!

My other beef is this announcement that DOJ is going to detain and prosecute all of them. We want them deported, not prosecuted. We don't have jails for them, we don't want to build jails for them, we want them deported. The states will prosecute the murderers and rapists and drug dealers and thieves and pedophiles, we don't need the DOJ to do that. So "prosecuting" an illegal entry or other immigration violation is not what we should focus on, we should focus on getting them OUT OUT OUT OUT and keeping them out. As you point out, DOJ has nothing to do with keeping them out. Under the present system, their obligation and duty is to quickly process deportation orders so DHS ERO can get their asses out of here.

Except for talking about solving the problem in DOJ with deportation orders, which I think is moving that responsibility back to DHS where it belongs, we shouldn't even be talking about Jeff Sessions with regards to immigration. His department isn't responsible for it, as YOU pointed out.