No. of Recommendations: 5
Wow, that is pretty clear and specific. Thank you for nailing this down. I wonder if the people who wrote this language knew that such abuse could result.
Not all statutes are clear and specific - this one is. Which if you look at the problem, shouldn't be all that surprising. If even the DJT Administration couldn't find a way to keep asylees from filing claims when they had crossed illegally, you have to suspect that there's a good reason why not. There had to be a pretty clear law preventing them from stopping the asylees.
Which, again, is why it's kind of foolish to blame Biden and think Trump can achieve something materially different on the issue of asylees.
This provision was drafted as part of the Refugee Act of 1980, when the overwhelming number of refugees and asylees were Vietnamese and Cambodians who were fleeing the rather indisputable horrors of the new regimes there. I suspect that the people who wrote the language might not have anticipated that it would take so long for claims to be adjudicated - or even that very many of them would need to reach immigration judges, instead of being granted by immigration agents (you don't need a judicial hearing if asylum is granted administratively). Pol Pot's regime was so murderous, and it was so clearly the position of the U.S. that the newly-created Socialist Republic of Vietnam was a horror show, that nearly all of the asylum cases would have been pretty clearly approvable and supported by the U.S. public. I don't think they anticipated that one day people would regard folks coming to the U.S. to present colorable requests for asylum and protection as "abuse."
