On Thursday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Border Czar Tom Homan stated that Congress needs to make immigration law changes, specifically raising the threshold for asylum claims at the border, allowing for the detention of families for 40 days and allowing for quicker removal of children from other nations.
Homan said, “I hope Congress could make some changes. They need to make changes, right? Because what concerns me is, every four years, a new president comes along, issue[s] brand-new executive orders to undo what the previous president did. I wish they’d settle this. Congress could fix three laws that would take 85% of the problem away from the border.”
He elaborated, “When you come across the border, you make a claim to asylum, the threshold’s very low, on purpose, because they don’t want to send someone back to be persecuted [in] their homeland. But it’s too low. So, the cartels, they’ll teach them a few key phrases to say and claim and they pass that first interview, but then they get to court — if they go to court — the threshold, much, much higher.”
Homan added that “The second thing is the Flores Settlement Agreement” to allow the government to detain families for 40 days. And “If you’re really escaping fear and persecution in your homeland, you shouldn’t have a problem sitting in an open-air family residential center for 40 days and have the judge hear your case.”
He concluded, “Finally, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, … the law says this, if you’re a child from Mexico and you come across the border by yourself and we ascertain, through investigation, that you’re not a victim of trafficking, you’re coming across to meet with a family member, whatever, you’re a victim of trafficking, you can be immediately removed to your homeland and back to your family. But if you’re from — and that’s for Mexico and Canada — but if you’re from any other country in the world, we can’t simply return you. You’ve got this multi-year process. So, … treat children all over the world the same as we treat children from Mexico.”
