“With electorates divided on both sides of the Atlantic, Europe and the US are likely to continue to follow an incoherent and uncoordinated series of policies, aiming to salvage their self-definition as caring and open societies, while doing everything possible to keep the world’s unfortunates at bay.
This is true, but it is true because we have the worst political class in our history and the worst media to go along with it. I have yet to see an article in the The Inquirer letting people know the views of legal immigrants. I meet a lot of them, because I take a lot of cabs, and a lot of them are cab drivers. Their perspective differs from what one usually hears.
There's been so much weight given in the media and on #45-supporting pulpits, about asylum seekers who enter the country "illegally," something that is very difficult to do.
ReplyDeleteHere is the first blurb, the "In General" part of The US code regarding asylums seekers:
(a) Authority to apply for asylum
(1) In general
Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.
Many of the immigrant cab drivers you speak to, believe that they had to go through the immigration hoops, but wrongfully think that present-day asylum seekers are not. They are following our rules.
US law is also why the administration loses court battles. Currently, there is a suit levied against the administration charging that the law intends that the hardships the administration is imposing on people, who are in need of asylum, goes against the law -- which it does. When we see on TV, that a family is left off on the American side by a row boat from Mexico -- not at a designated port of entry -- and then immediately seek out the border patrol to begin their asylum, they are beginning a legal asylum process.
And, by the way, there is no stipulation that the asylum process has to begin within the first day of entry, or first week, and so forth. If someone were to say to someone who came, not at a port of entry, that they are here illegally. A proper response would be, "No, I am not. I intend to apply for asylum." So these rowboat people are not only legal, they are above-and-beyond conscience to American law, and informed -- something many in need of asylum may not be, as they get up and flee for their lives from wherever.
As a country committed to giving asylum, how then should we handle these people? And how did we sadly without integrity become a country that welcomes asylum seekers on legal paper, then tells them they are not welcome and illegal once they get here. Immigration attorneys are pulling their hair out. and I'm not sure this ought not be grounds for arresting and imprisoning the perpetrators in our government.
A great administration would be asking Congress, and digging into available funds, to process asylum seekers humanely, instead of building walls -- not to say that we would not be better off with walls in some places, and better off taking walls down in others, for the sake of security and crime. Then we would have a president who could rightfully say that he is fulfilling something that the Obama administration left neglected -- not that a great president would stoop so low as to be such a braggart.
Frank,
ReplyDeletePerhaps you should write an op-ed in the Inquirer about your encounters with legal immigrants and their views. I'd like to read it. Paul