Title 42 Shouldn’t Matter in Controlling Border, by Steve Levy

https://www.newsmax.com/stevelevy/bush-immigration-obama/2023/05/11/id/1119417/

Many lawmakers are losing their minds over concerns of a massive border surge as a result of border agents no longer being able to deny immigrants’ passage based on COVID-19 concerns.

But if Biden officials simply adhere to the successful reforms implemented in the Trump administration, it wouldn’t matter.

We don’t need COVID-19 as an excuse to reject people at the border.

It’s already illegal under Title 8 to cross the border without approval by the American authorities. The problem is the Biden administration simply stopped enforcing our laws.

There are three ways to get into the United States legally.

One is to wait until your papers are processed and certified. Another is to claim you qualify under the Unaccompanied Minors Act, and the third is to claim you are persecuted at home and need asylum.

The Unaccompanied Minors Act, passed in the George W. Bush administration, was designed to deal with youths snuck over the border with cartel pimps to be sold into the sex trade.

The intent of the law was to separate these innocent victims from the cartel members who brought them in.

They would be held aside until a court deliberated as to their future.

The cartels found a loophole so big they could drive a truck through it.

They began sending minors alone to the border.

Since there was no guardian affiliated with the youngster, the border agents were letting them in.

Obama caught wind of the cartels playing these loophole games and stated he was going to update the wording of the Bush law to close this loophole.

But lo and behold, the leftwing immigration lobby pounded Barack Obama, forcing him to fold like a cheap tent.

As a result these illegal crossings increased by fifteen fold since 2008.

Thereafter, the cartels found that they could do even better by exploiting our generous asylum laws, which could provide entry to illegal aliens of all ages.

The idea was to no longer run away from the border agents, but instead approach them, and simply utter the words, “I am seeking asylum.”

Of course, this is a scam, since the overwhelming majority of crossers were engaging in the trek for economic reasons.

Former President Trump saw the law being exploited and issued an executive order, noting that anyone seeking asylum could only do so by making the pitch outside of the U.S.

In other words, remain in Mexico while we consider your claim.

It worked like magic.

Illegal crossings dropped considerably.

Biden could have kept this policy in place, but he wanted to do the opposite. After all, if it was a Trump policy, it must be morally bankrupt.

More significantly, Biden wanted the increased flow from Latin America.

His Democratic operatives knew this was a golden opportunity to import millions of future voters who would, if tradition held, vote overwhelmingly Democrat, thereby turning red states, such as Texas, purple.

There is absolutely no need to seek so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” that must be signed off by Congress.

Trump controlled the border through his executive actions.

Comprehensive immigration reform is a ruse to push dollars for drones and a few extra border agents and – most importantly to the left – grant amnesty to the tens of millions of illegal aliens already here.

Title 42, authorizing a denial of entry at the border, was an additional tool if the administration wanted to use it.

But Biden refused to maximize the option because, as stated above, his goal was never to prevent border crossings, but rather to encourage a “surge” at the border (see his statements during the 2020 debates).

So, once Title 42 goes away it doesn’t mean that migrants have a free pass into the U.S.

The law still allows the agents to turn the migrants away unless they have a legal predicate to gain entry.

Requiring those claiming asylum to stay in Mexico solves the problem for all but those coming as unaccompanied minors.

If there is action for Congress to take it would be to clarify that the Minors Act should relate only to children actually engaged in the sex slave industry.

With or without Title 42, all Biden has to do is say you can’t gain entry to the U.S. simply by making a claim of asylum; you must do it in a foreign port.

Biden has played a very cynical game by claiming he’s doing that with a reform he issued late last year. It does allow asylum-seekers from four specific countries to apply in foreign lands.

But it doesn’t shut anyone else off from still making that request at the border.

And worse, he is sending out the word to the millions of people in Latin America that if you apply in these foreign nations, the administration will allow automatic entry and a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of people instead of waiting on line, like four million suckers have been doing for 10 years.

Just another Biden border blunder.

Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, [email protected]. Read Steve Levy’s Reports — More Here.