Border Crisis: ‘The System Is On Fire’

... New statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) paint a grim picture of a border that is almost completely overwhelmed. In February, we saw the highest number of apprehensions since 2007, with family apprehensions 560 percent higher than in February 2016. This month, family apprehensions are up by 40 percent just from last month. In just the first six months of the fiscal year, CBP has apprehended and turned away more than 422,000 people—more than they did in all of 2017.

In a press release, CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez called the situation a “system-wide emergency.” Another top official simply said: “The system is on fire.”...

Most of the 1.6 million illegal [alien] immigrants arrested in 2000 were Mexican adults, traveling alone. Currently, however, the bulk of those arrested at the border are family units and unaccompanied minors.

The distinction is crucial. American immigration laws treat single adults differently than they treat families and minors traveling alone. Single adults are detained or deported. Family units, however, are released into the United States with orders to appear before an immigration judge, a process that usually takes years.

In other words, mass apprehensions taking place at the border are simply turning into mass release....

Our detention laws don’t allow families to be detained together, and our asylum laws mean they can’t be sent back. So, instead, they are released into the country with a court date, years into the future. (Asylum courts currently have a backlog of 830,000 cases.)...

With many of the top spots open at DHS, the new leadership needs to focus, first and foremost, on two key aspects of enforcement.

First, they need to challenge the 1997 settlement agreement that is propelling the “catch-and-release” of families. The Flores agreement only allows children to be detained for 20 days....

Second, the Trump Administration must address asylum loopholes. ...