Are Democrats Losing Their Nerve Over Biden’s Asylum Abuse?

Amid the free-for-all at the southern border, use and abuse of America’s asylum system has gotten so out of hand that even Barack Obama’s Homeland Security chief is calling foul.

Jeh Johnson told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation” last month: “It takes six years right now to process an asylum claim once someone has entered this country. And one of the problems is that the bar to qualify initially and establish a case of ‘credible fear’ is relatively low. Something like 70 percent of migrants qualify who seek it.”

But when (or if) these migrants appear in an immigration court, their odds are longer. Johnson noted that barely one in five applicants admitted into the country end up qualifying for asylum. Earlier this year, FAIR reported that 99 percent of border crossers in a “Dedicated Docket” program had invalid asylum claims.

Johnson said, “My friends on the left won’t be too happy to hear” about his concerns. Actually, Obama and Bill Clinton have shared them on previous occasions. So has Democratic strategist James Carville. Clinton signed the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which authorized “expedited removal” of illegal entrants to prevent them from gaming the asylum system.

But that was then. One thing Johnson & Co. have in common nowadays is that none of them are, or ever will be, running for anything in today’s Democratic Party.

Still, under U.S. law, migrants arriving here without permission are subject to expulsion. The only exceptions are those fleeing torture or racial, religious, ethnic, political or social-group persecution. “Seeking a better life” or calling oneself an “economic refugee” don’t qualify. Or at least they didn’t before Joe Biden became president.

Now that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is headed by Alejandro Mayorkas – whose motto as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was “Get to Yes” – the definition of asylum has been stretched and contorted beyond all legal boundaries.

For every action, there is a reaction, and FAIR reported this month that the White House may be considering a return to measures that would limit access to asylum. Consistent with U.S. and international law, the proposals would keep migrants who have passed through third countries from seeking asylum here unless they can demonstrate they had applied for asylum in those third countries and were rejected.

As America’s border chaos mounts and asylum queues grow endlessly, that would be a good place to start.