What Do Dems Mean By "Fair and Humane" Immigration? Open Borders?

By Margaret Sands Orchowski PhD.           

In November 2019, I got to ask Joe Biden privately how he thought Democrats should enforce immigration laws. The then former Vice President of President Obama leaned down and whispered in my ear: "It must be fair and humane." I quickly asked him what he meant by "fair and humane?"  But he moved on.   

This July 2022, I got to learn personally, just how now President Biden's supposedly "fair and humane" immigration policy works at our Southern border. In an exclusive two-hour interview - in Spanish only - a (beautiful) 26-year old Venezuelan woman eagerly told me how she had walked from Ecuador to Texas in 45 days this summer and then happily took a free bus ride to DC. "The easiest border to cross", she said, "was into the USA." She simply waded across the Rio Grande river with hundreds of others. 

On the Texas side she was helped by uniformed border patrol agents who asked if she was OK. At the registration table, she and her friends only had to give their names and nationalities (no documents were required). Then they were told that they were "automaticamente" registered as asylee claimants. No credible evidence of persecution was requested. After two days in a tent camp with showers, new clothes, food and phone service, they were taken to a nearby Texas town and told they were free to go anywhere. With their "discretionary parole" documents from the Department of Homeland Security and their asylum application papers, they were not given orders to appear in any immigration court.

This is not the asylum protocol of the past. The entire process has been expedited because of the surge of an unprecedented two million illegal border crossers this year alone, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Millions more are expected. So the new processes circumvent vital asylee protocols established in law for decades that required that the asylum applicant present at the border before entering evidence of a present credible threat of mortal danger if they returned to their homeland. Mortal danger has always been the basic requirement for asylum. Finding a better job has never been a reason to grant asylum.  And entering illegally disqualified an applicant from that initial interview.

 But now apparently anyone can enter the U.S. illegally, go to a border patrol officer and automatically be given an asylum claim application with no initial vetting and the right to remain and work for years. This is open borders. Is that what Biden meant when he said immigration enforcement should be humane and fair?  

On September 20, Connecticut's Attorney General William Tong - the keynote speaker at the Migration Policy Institute's "Immigration Law and Policy" day-long conference at Georgetown Law School – proclaimed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had used cruel and inhumane practices when he flew 50 "confused" Venezuelan migrants (who had signed written consents) to Martha's Vineyard-- a self-proclaimed sanctuary island resort. They were quickly removed by the Massachusetts National Guard.  Tong declared that as an Asian American with immigrant parents, he would join a lawsuit to sue Governor DeSantis for cruelty and inhumanity. 

I asked Tong after his speech if he could expand on what he meant by "fair and humane" immigration enforcement? I said the perception seemed to be "Open borders".    "I did not say open borders!" Tong retorted irritably several times. "Aren't you a compassionate person?" he snapped as he hastily excited the elevator with his glaring entourage. 

The Deputy Director for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in charge of vetting asylees was more forthcoming. "Most asylum applicants who came to the U.S. to get a better job, will eventually be found to be illegally in the country", Jennifer Higgins told me. She described new protocols that CIS was testing that would make asylee vetting more efficient and secure. But it will take years to fully develop them; probably after the 2024 presidential elections. Meanwhile most all those hundreds of thousands of migrants who crossed illegally into the country and claimed false asylum, will probably be allowed to stay with impunity.

Biden's "fair and humane" immigration enforcement policy seems to be messaging illegal border crossers "Come on in! You can stay!"     That's open borders.                                                                                                                      

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