Asylum Requests: History Repeating?



Statue of Liberty signpost in New York CityAlthough it is characterized in the media as a new phenomenon of aliens showing up at the border and requesting asylum, it is not new. It is a similar phenomenon as occurred two decades ago. But then it was aliens showing up at international airports and requesting asylum. The response of the immigration authorities then was to give the arriving aliens a work permit and a date to appear in the future for a court hearing on their asylum claim.

As word on the grapevine got passed around that this was an easy route to illegal entry into the United States, the practice snowballed, so the dates to appear for that hearing got pushed farther into the future.

The problem grew so extensive with thousands of arriving asylum claimants that the Clinton administration finally decided to act. That action was to begin detention of the asylum applicants, expedited hearings of the asylum claims and denial of work permits to all except those who were found preliminarily to have a prima facie case for asylum. The result was swift; the number of asylum claimants at airports dropped off dramatically.

The only difference with the surge in asylum applicants today with the earlier crisis is that those arriving at airports two decades ago had been issued visas. The new surge is made up of people who arrive without visas and includes many minors – often unaccompanied – which implies a more sensitive issue of detention facilities. The Obama administration has reacted by saying that the asylum claims would be expedited, and those having invalid claims would be deported. But, despite the claims of activists supporting the illegal aliens, there is no evidence of any follow-through of detention and deportation that would deter the wave of fraudulent asylum claimants. So, it has continued.

About Author

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Jack, who joined FAIR’s National Board of Advisors in 2017, is a retired U.S. diplomat with consular experience. He has testified before the U.S. Congress, U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform and has authored studies of immigration issues. His national and international print, TV, and talk radio experience is extensive (including in Spanish).

6 Comments

  1. avatar

    Ligaya Fabian of 1631 El Camino Real #8 Tustin Ca 92780 submitted fake documents and paid money to obtain a driver’s license but the dmv found out and revoked the license. She jumpshipped her flight from Germany to Canada at lax to get here. She now has a green card. ……….

  2. avatar

    Hi, again. I posted over, oh gosh, where did I post about the Health Care Law? I think it’s the Immigration Issues (Law).

    Sorry for the data dump, but here’s some information I worked out. I’m just going to type the basic intellect: I will show *how* the applications work in another post.

    Restriction: Non-citizens can not receive benefits.

    Now, I’ll show you how English is used correctly to adjudicate this sentence (Language In the Law):

    Take the adjectives “direct” and “indirect.”

    Repeat the word benefits:

    Place the phrase “EITHER direct benefits OR indirect ” before the word “benefits”.

    IF the US (or the EU, because the EU States are from where we borrowed the statement “non-citizens can not receive benefits” from the 96 Welfare Reform.)

    Now the phrase should read: NON-citizens can not receive either DIRECT benefits or receive indirect benefits.”

    What does this mean?

    It means that both the EU and the US can not provide welfare benefits (directly, such as food, shelter, medical care), nor can the EU and the US provide indirect benefits (such as personnel costs, transportation, administrative costs, etc) to NON-Citizens.

    These indirect and direct welfare benefits (or humanitarian aid as Obama called it) would be considered welfare over-payments, and must be repaid by the non-citizen. Yes. It’s true.

    Translation: the EU Migrant crises? Ummmmm, this is really sad, but…all the migrants are required to repay back each EU state the monies which they received either directly or indirectly..

    The tax treaties must be applied concurrently. (if you don’t know, I’ll post on this later!)

  3. avatar

    Ligaya Fabian of 1631 El Camino Real #8 Tustin Ca 92780 submitted fake documents and paid money to obtain a driver’s license but the dmv found out and revoked the license. She jumpshipped her flight from Germany to Canada at lax to get here. She now has a green card. …..

  4. avatar

    Ligaya Fabian of 1631 El Camino Real #8 Tustin Ca 92780 submitted fake documents and paid money to obtain a driver’s license but the dmv found out and revoked the license. She jumpshipped her flight from Germany to Canada at lax to get here. She now has a green card. ……..

  5. avatar

    As usual this administration and Hillary say one thing about enforcing the law and then fail to act when they need to. But then that’s the perfect example of her “take a public and a private position”, whichever is convenient at the time.She will never ever deport anyone.

    Hillary is in Florida today and one of the people introducing her is the former Miss Universe who was supposedly “fat shamed” because she gained 60 pounds in a few months after winning. As usual, none of the media has mentioned a word about the fact that a Venezuelan judge said back in the 90s that she called him and threatened to have him killed if her boyfriend went to trial. But Hillary does love her thugs, including those who aim guns at cops.

    It’s been repeatedly said, and is obviously true, that if the situation were reversed and it was a person with the same baggage appearing on the same stage as Trump, the media would never let it go. Instead, crickets. Bias? Of course. DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile has now been shown for the second time in another WikiLeaks release to have given another debate question word for word to the Clinton campaign when she worked for CNN.

    And how many tens of thousands of women over the decades have worked for, been in pageants, appeared at Trump events, and no criminal complaints and no women “coming forward”. The guy would be a cash register for those kinds of suits and nothing until now. Hmmm. Draw your own conclusions.