Charging that the U.S government is easily fooled by bogus asylum claims, Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed Wednesday to toughen criteria for foreign families seeking asylum – a measure that could lead to more mothers and children in detention centers.
The move is in direct response to last year’s surge of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in countries such as Honduras and El Salvador. Roughly 50,000 unaccompanied minors and 52,000 families were apprehended as they sought safety in the United States.
Many Republicans blamed President Barack Obama and his immigration policies, charging he’d delivered a message to Central America that the migrants would be welcomed and their asylum claims would be rubber-stamped. The Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act, introduced by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, U-Utah, would tighten the “credible fear” standard to reduce baseless claims. It also would tighten the standard for release from detention under parole authority, so that the Obama administration can’t automatically release detainees before their claims are proved legitimate.
It was one of several bills on interior immigration enforcement discussed in Wednesday’s hearing before the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.
There are no votes planned on the bill, but immigrant advocates fear the proposal could lead to more women and children held in detention and for longer periods. Many of these families from Central America claim they have a credible fear of returning because of domestic violence and other threats of persecution.
The Obama administration has resurrected – and is rapidly expanding – the controversial practice of detaining immigrant families. The Department of Homeland Security recently opened what will be the country’s largest detention center, in Dilley, Texas, as part of a plan to raise its capacity to hold as many as 3,700 mothers and children. Last year, the department had only one family facility, in Berks County, Pa., with just 100 beds.
“What is happening right now on the Southwest border is nothing less than a dismantling of humanitarian law and U.S. asylum law right before our faces,” Greg Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said before Wednesday’s hearing.
It’s simply too easy to game the system, Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., said in his prepared remarks. He said the administration had done little to address the tens of thousands of minors and families who’d entered the country illegally last year from Central America. Too many, he said, have been released into the population with orders to appear before judges. He said many would simply never show up.
“In the end, it doesn’t matter how many aliens are apprehended along the border, if apprehension itself becomes a golden ticket into the country,” Goodlatte said.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who previously practiced immigration law, said the proposal ran counter to U.S. obligations under domestic and international law not to send people back to where they might be persecuted. She noted that Honduras and El Salvador have two of the world’s highest murder rates.
She cited federal statistics that showed that 14 out of 15 families who’d received legal assistance at a now-closed Artesia, N.M., family detention center were granted asylum.
“I imagine some of my colleagues might say that proves our asylum laws are too generous, but I think it shows how critically important it is that we not roll back procedural protections that are needed to literally save lives,” Lofgren said.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the immigration subcommittee, said the country faced a complex challenge in being a nation of laws also made up of people with humanity and compassion.
But Gowdy, a former prosecutor, added that government’s top function is public safety. He said he’d tried to think about how he’d explain to a potential victim of a crime perpetrated by a released detainee why someone who was here illegally wasn’t stopped when the federal government had the chance to do so.
“I’m not a good enough lawyer to explain that,” Gowdy said.
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