Trump's 'Compromise' Guts Asylum Laws

By Karoli Kuns — January 22, 2019

Monday night, Senator Mitch McConnell rolled out a 1,300-page bill in response to Trump's "compromise" outline announced on Saturday. The contours as described by Trump, but the details are far, far worse.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick is a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council. He reviewed the text as published by McConnell, only to discover that it guts our asylum system, as he tweeted in a long but important thread. The entire thread can be read in unrolled form here. There is also another thread nested in this one from Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us.

The upshot: This bill would gut the asylum system, particularly for children seeking asylum from Central America. Here are some highlights, but I recommend reading the whole thread.

Here's how the "compromise" bill shreds our asylum laws:

1. Bans asylum for all Central American Minors (including those who come with parents!), unless the minor applies in their country.
2. Limits applications to 50k yearly and grants to 15k yearly.
3. Eliminates all review.

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) January 22, 2019

And more! The DHS procedure for granting asylum would ALSO require a determination that granting asylum was "in the national interest," making asylum even HARDER.

This is a sham of a sham that guts asylum protections for Central Americans and sets up a kangaroo process. pic.twitter.com/mCgozD0ytG

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) January 22, 2019

Wow. Massive asylum restrictions is right. This bill appears to ban asylum for Central American Minors who try to apply at the US border! It says that if you're a CAM, you MUST apply in your country or you are ineligible for asylum. And then the bill sets a cap! https://t.co/Y1Z2hayrXV

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) January 22, 2019

Here's an observation from Todd Schulte:

NEW Stephen Miller addition:

On page 417, there is a 20% expansion in immigrant jail beds. That is a massive expansion for the Trump administration's ability to keep families detained and part of their long-term strategy.

h/t to a friend who is much wiser on this for flagging.

— Todd Schulte (@TheToddSchulte) January 22, 2019

Bottom line, this is another bad-faith attempt to weasel out of responsibility for shutting down the government -- no, actually destroying the government -- and is not to be taken seriously.

Republicans are just going to keep playing these games. I believe their ultimate goal is to actually shut down the government forever. It's time to impeach the MF.

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