[ad_1]
Senate Republicans are demanding an overhaul to America’s “broken asylum process” as a condition for passing President Biden’s $106 billion emergency spending request to Congress.
Members of the Senate Republican Working Group released a one-page document Monday titled “Solutions for the Southern Border Crisis” which outlines several policy changes aimed at shrinking the number of migrants that pass through the US-Mexico border.
The GOP working group, whose members include Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), hope to attach the migrant asylum and parole modifications to the 80-year-old president’s national security supplemental, which requests more than $61 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel and $14 billion for border security.
“The crisis at the southern border is a direct result of failed policies. The Senate Republican Working Group is presenting solutions to fix these failed policies, instead of simply throwing more money at the ever-worsening problem,” the document, inspired by the House GOP’s Secure the Border Act – H.R. 2 – which passed in May, states.
“These solutions, drawn from those found in H.R. 2, prioritize the concrete and significant policy reforms that are most critical to securing the border and stemming the flow of migrants immediately. Securing our southern border should be a key component of our national security,” the lawmakers argue.
Senate Republicans call US asylum laws “the top loophole that ‘pulls’ illegal aliens” across the border.
In their proposal, the GOP working group demands that migrants be ineligible for asylum if they have transited through at least one country outside their home country before arriving in the US.
Migrants would also be ineligible for asylum if they have committed felonies or other serious crimes, including, gang-related offenses, DUI, child abuse, domestic violence, certain controlled substance offenses, and extreme cruelty or battery.
The lawmakers also seek to raise the asylum “credible fear of persecution” standard from “significant possibility” to “more likely than not.”
Under the GOP proposal, migrants would be required to make their asylum requests at a port of entry, a change from the current system which allows migrants to claim asylum when they are nabbed by Border Patrol agents after illegally entering the US.
Separately, the proposal seeks changes to the humanitarian parole system as well, arguing that the Biden administration has abused the program which allows migrants to make appointments to enter at a legal port of entry without providing a direct path to citizenship.
The document directs the Biden administration to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from using “broad class-based criteria” to grant humanitarian parole, allow parole only for migrants not currently in the country, limit the use of parole to rare cases, and when used, grant parole terms of 1 year or less.
The Biden administration has used humanitarian parole to resettle more than 200,000 refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine, and hundreds of thousands more from countries that include Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti.
The plan also calls for a revival of the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which allowed US border authorities to return migrants to Mexico while their asylum claims played out in the court system.
“Require the return of aliens to a contiguous country during their immigration proceedings if DHS can’t detain or remove them to a safe third country,” the blueprint states. “This would also allow for the suspension of entry of certain inadmissible aliens (similar to authority under a Title 42 order) if DHS deems it necessary to achieve ‘operational control.”
Senate Republicans also call for the resumption of border wall construction and a focus on “tactical infrastructure, advanced surveillance, and the most-effective technology,” along with higher pay for Border Patrol agents.
Biden previously vowed to veto the House border security bill if it reached his desk. It’s unclear how open the White House would be this time around to a bill tying Ukraine and Israel aid to border security measures.
The president did not attend a White House meeting last week with Democratic mayors seeking $5 billion to finance local services for migrants released at the US-Mexico border.
[ad_2]
Source link