Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is detailing a plan for President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would instantly end the administration’s expanded Catch and Release policy.
As Breitbart News has chronicled, DHS has been releasing roughly 1,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the United States through the unofficial Catch and Release program. The process often entails federal immigration officials dropping illegal aliens off at bus stations, where they are then released from custody with the promise to return for their immigration hearings. The overwhelming majority of illegal aliens are never deported from the country once released into the interior.
During an interview on Fox News, Kobach explained how the policy can be instantly ended by the creation of more detention space:
One of the problems we have right now is because the system is so overloaded in terms of detention space … we’ve maxed out on the detention space we have. We have to think creatively and make additional space, because if we don’t then all these people who are claiming asylum — they suddenly make the claim and then they suddenly disappear into the fabric of the United States, never to be seen again. [Emphasis added]
My point was we should have processing centers either at U.S. military bases or other facilities where we bring in the thousands upon thousands of trailer homes that FEMA still has … let’s use them to solve this crisis so that we can keep people in comfortable living conditions but instead of just turning them loose and never to be seen again, let’s process their asylum claim quickly. [Emphasis added]
I would think most people claiming asylum, if its a true claim, would want it to be processed quickly. Get it done and if they fail in their attempt to claim asylum, then put them on a passenger plane immediately and fly them back home. [Emphasis added]
Kobach said the plan would not only end Catch and Release, but also act as a deterrent for future border crossers and illegal aliens.
“And we’ll get back in the home countries ‘Oh wait a minute, it’s not so easy just to disappear into America by making a bogus claim of asylum’ which more than 90 percent of them are actually not legitimate claims for asylum,” Kobach said.
Kobach said he there is no incentive for Trump’s DHS to reinstate the “Zero Tolerance” policy which resulted in the temporary separation of child migrants from the adults with whom they arrived at the southern border.
Keeping children with the adults they arrive in the U.S. with, Kobach said, is necessary to ensure that the unit is quickly processed and either granted asylum or deported, together.
“We do not need to separate families, nor should we, because if we quickly publish the Flores Settlement regulation — which is already been initially published and could be finally published any day now — that will define the terms where we can keep a whole family together … if the whole family is coming in together at the same time in a caravan, then keep them together while we’re processing their asylum claim,” Kobach said.
“There is no reason that we should have to [separate families] if you have a legitimate family,” Kobach said.
Last week, Kobach detailed a three-part plan that Trump’s DHS can implement — without authorization from Congress — that he asserts will immediately result in the reduction of soaring illegal immigration levels and keep the asylum system from being overwhelmed.
In total, since the end of last year, DHS has released about 133,500 border crossers and illegal aliens into the U.S. — a population more than double the population of Portland, Maine, and nearly triple the population of Galveston, Texas.
Without incremental changes to Trump’s border, immigration, and asylum policy, experts have said the U.S. could admit between one to 1.5 million border crossers and illegal aliens into the country this year.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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