Not all those people are from Central and South America. More and more are from Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and many other countries. Apparently, it is not too difficult to enter Mexico, and then travel to the border with the U.S., cross the border and wait for a CBP agent to arrest you – and claim POLITICAL ASYLUM.
If those numbers continue (about a quarter million every month), we are going to see close to 3 million illegal entrants to the U.S. in a year. Even if some of them have been arrested on repeat attempts to enter, and the “net” number of illegal entrants is only 2 million per year, can the Immigration Service handle such numbers?
CAN THE U.S. TOLERATE SUCH NUMBERS?
MENTAL HEALTH
CAN SAVE YOU
In Immigration Court, in Removal (Deportation) proceedings, having a criminal conviction may, sometimes, block an applicant from asking for certain REMEDIES. This is especially true if the conviction was for a crime that leads to a conclusion that the applicant could be a danger to others.
A new decision by the Secretary of Homeland Security instructs Immigration Judges to consider the mental health problems of the applicant as a factor in deciding whether he or she is actually a danger to others.
IMMIGRATION COURTS
There are many Immigration Courts, in all 50 states, and in all major cities. There are also many Immigration Judges, almost 600 judges.
In spite of all this, the Immigration Court system is barely functioning, because it is overburdened with a huge backlog, a “mountain” of cases. As per last count, the backlog reached 1,600,000 (1.6 million) cases. The average would be 2,666 cases for every immigration judge. And the mountain is “growing”. What a mess.
The only real solution for this mess would be through a reform of our immigration law. The chances of this are close to zero.
But the Biden administration took some administrative steps to lighten the burden. They instructed the government lawyers prosecuting the cases to review their pending cases – and to close those cases that would not have been filed under the present, more liberal, guidelines for filing court cases.
There is hope that this step would cut the backlog by half.
Not a bad idea.