Federal Judge: Asylum for Most Illegal Immigrants

By Joe Guzzardi
February 25, 2015

While Congress is deadlocked over whether to fund the Department of Homeland Security with or without the monies to implement President Obama’s executive action, a federal judge’s important immigration order has gone largely unnoticed.

Last week, James E. Boasberg, an Obama-appointed District of Columbia federal judge ruled that U.S. civil rights must be granted to aliens caught at the border, and to release detainees except for those who may represent a threat to Americans. Judge Boasberg wrote that the illegal immigrants might have legitimate asylum claims, and are therefore entitled to due process especially since their liberties may be at risk.

In his decision, Boasberg wrote that detaining illegal immigrants could cause “irreparable harm to mothers and children seeking asylum.” Boasberg’s interpretation has drilled a huge hole in border security and put down the red carpet to millions of prospective illegal immigrants who last summer watched more than 125,000 Central Americans unlawfully but successfully enter the U.S. Many were reunited with their families, also illegal immigrants.

Boasberg’s ruling, a big boost for human traffickers and drug cartels who will use it to their advantage, didn’t detail his order’s eventual consequences. Once released and awaiting their asylum hearing, the aliens will receive employment authorization documents, social security numbers, welfare benefits and, in states that allow it, driver’s licenses.

Immigration courts are already overloaded. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services alerted members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association that more than 40,000 asylum cases are currently backlogged and that they’re accelerating at an unmanageable rate.

Asylum cases, which Boasberg’s ruling encourages, are notoriously fraud-riddled. Last year, the New York Times reported that asylum processing is so lucrative for some lawyers that it represents “an industry of lies.” As part of its story about a wide-reaching immigration fraud investigation, the Times learned that federal officials recorded conversations between lawyers and clients wherein the counsel to the asylum seeker was to “just make it [his claims] up.” The Times findings resulted in the prosecution of at least 30 people including lawyers, paralegals and interpreters. Since most asylum claims are based on hearsay, analysts estimate that as many as 75 percent of all submitted applications are fraudulent.

The White House has spent more than six years gutting enforcement, circumventing Congress, and issuing its own edicts. The president’s steady dismantling of immigration law finally culminated in his November 2014 executive amnesty that would remove about five million illegal aliens from possible deportation, and instead reward them with work permits and public benefits.

Obama disregarded the November mid-term election results which dramatically rejected his immigration agenda and cost Democrats the Senate majority. Boasberg’s ruling is consistent with Obama’s steadfast refusal to heed public opinion, secure the border and cut entitlements to illegal immigrants who should be denied access to them.

A Gallup poll taken in 2013 showed that about 150 million foreign-born are eager to migrate to the U.S. Boasberg’s ruling represents one more reason for prospective aliens to ignore the legal procedure to enter, and instead come illegally, confident that somehow or another they’ll be allowed to remain.

Obama’s assault on immigration law is unsustainable, and will, if it hasn’t already, lead to the historic American nation’s ruin.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact him at [email protected]