Almost every country in the world has a governmental process that determines which asylum seekers — if any — are allowed entry to their country. It’s a simple exercise of sovereign rights and it’s generally acknowledged that it’s a government’s right and duty to take on that responsibility.
Except in Joe Biden’s America. Biden has tasked six private “humanitarian groups” with choosing which individuals or families applying for asylum in the U.S. deserve to enter the country.
This outrageous and unprecedented action is necessary because of the chaos at the border. The Biden administration doesn’t have the personnel to go to Mexico and interview the thousands of refugees applying for asylum, so they’ve tasked the private groups to act in the name of the United States government to do the job for them.
What’s more, the criteria the humanitarian groups are using to select who comes in and who doesn’t is secret. No one knows why they would choose one refugee from Honduras and not another.
“As the United States continues to enforce the CDC Order under its Title 42 public health authority, we are working to streamline a system for identifying and lawfully processing particularly vulnerable individuals who warrant humanitarian exceptions under the order,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said. “This humanitarian exception process involves close coordination with international and non-governmental organizations in Mexico.”
Critics of the new selection processes say too much power is vested in a small number of organizations and that the effort is shrouded in secrecy without a clear explanation of how the groups were chosen. Critics also say there are no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum.
Some consortium members are concerned that going public may cause their offices in Mexico to be mobbed by asylum-seekers, overwhelming their tiny staffs and exposing them to potential threats and physical attacks from extortionists and other criminals.
How do you determine which sob story told by an asylum-seeker is more believable or sobbier than another’s?
Special consideration is being given to people who have been in Mexico a long time, are in need of acute medical attention or who have disabilities, are members of the LGBTQ community or are non-Spanish speakers, though each case is being weighed on its unique circumstances, Tamayo said.
In other words, if they check enough boxes, they can come in. White heterosexual males need not apply.
The numbers are not huge but when Biden lifts the public health order that keeps asylum seekers in Mexico, be ready for a tsunami of people clambering to get in.
Several members of the consortium spoke to The Associated Press about the criteria and provided details of the system that have not been previously reported. The government is aiming to admit to the country up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the groups and is agreeing to that system only until July 31. By then, the consortium hopes the Biden administration will have lifted the public health rules, though the government has not committed to that.
Radical open-border groups have the president’s ear and are driving this policy forward. If this is such a great idea, why not publicize who is participating on the selection committee? What criteria are being used for an asylum seeker to gain entry? Why the secrecy. What do they have to hide?
What they’re hiding is this surrender of U.S. sovereignty to radical groups that care nothing for the United States or its people. It should be the United States government and the government alone that determines who gets to come in and who is denied entry.
Anything less is an abdication of responsibilities by the government of a free people.
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