Less than two years ago, President Donald Trump sought to end the moratorium President Barack Obama had placed on deporting "Dreamers," calling it an abuse of presidential authority and "an end-run around Congress" that violated "the core tenets that sustain our Republic."
Apparently, Trump has changed his mind about the limits of presidential power when it comes to immigration, because he's been using his with a vengeance -- not to aid the vulnerable, but to reduce the flow of desperate people across the southern border. According to the Migration Policy Center, the Trump administration has made some 600 unilateral changes in immigration policy, the most of any presidency in modern times. These include such major steps as returning migrants to Mexico if they cross the southern border illegally, barring asylum requests from migrants who enter the U.S. from anywhere other than a legal point of entry, and threatening to slap increasingly high tariffs on Mexican goods unless the country stops migrants from making their way north to the United States.
This week, though, the president outdid himself, all but ending asylum for anyone from Central America or other points south of Mexico. Under a new rule that went into effect Tuesday, migrants fleeing persecution and violence will have to ask for asylum from the countries they pass through before reaching the United States, with limited exceptions. If they do not, the administration will seek to send them back to their home countries.
It boggles the mind to think of families fleeing MS-13 recruiters, drug traffickers and extortionists in Honduras or El Salvador trying to resettle safely in dysfunctional Guatemala. Even the idea that Mexico, which has its own problems with homicidal cartels, is a haven for asylum seekers strains credulity.
The administration justified the move by saying the new system would "reduce the overwhelming burdens on our domestic system caused by asylum seekers failing to seek urgent protection in the first available country, economic migrants lacking a legitimate fear of persecution, and the transnational criminal organizations, traffickers, and smugglers exploiting our system for profits."
In fact, though, the new rule is not only cruel, it is a retreat from the United States' moral obligation and long-standing commitment to helping those who seek refuge here.
This country's prosperity makes it a magnet for migrants, many of whom may have no legal right to immigrate. But many of them are fleeing desperate situations in search of asylum, and Congress established a humane process for receiving them and judging their pleas that the administration cannot flout.
Commentary on 07/18/2019