Progressives Enraged by AG Sessions’ Reform of Asylum Law

Asylum
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Neil Munro

Pro-migration advocates turned their outrage meter up to max after Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed rules allowing Central Americans to get asylum if they say they are threatened by domestic violence or by gang violence.

“America is better than this, but apparently Attorney General Jeff Sessions is not,” said a statement from Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. “Today’s decision will send untold numbers of refugees to their deaths. Attorney General Sessions: their blood is on your hands.”

“This could be a death sentence for many,” said Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey.

“We should all be ashamed,” said Sen. California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris.

Democrats’ angry response suggests that they are unwilling to accept the public’s 2016 demand for a compromise of their open-borders ideology, no matter the economic and civic damage being done to Americans and their communities. Without any compromise by progressives and their business allies, polls suggest that the public will to support their communities in the voting booth.

Sessions used his authority as Attorney General to reverse rules written by lawyers under President Barack Obama which effectively allowed a huge number of migrants to get into the United States and get work permits by insisting they had been beaten by their husbands or threatened by gang members. The “catch and release” loopholes were created by Obama’s staffers who declared that such victims were part of a “particular social group.”

The “social group” phrase is in the law which offers asylum to people who are persecuted for their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” But the decision by Obama’s lawyers to invent the two new social groups — people who suffered domestic violence, and people who were threatened by gangs — created a rush for the border.

So many migrants and lawyers used this legal loopholes that the courts have now become backlogged, delaying asylum hearings for several years, and allowing at least 400,000 migrants to work in the United States. That huge population of workers holds down wages for millions of blue-collar Americans, including recent immigrants — although it does create an economic windfall for Democratic-aligned immigration lawyers and urban cheap-labor employers.

In fact, Obama’s migrant-friendly rules helped trigger the 2014 border rush which suddenly flipped public opinion against migrati0n and the migrants. That public reaction helped prepare the way for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Sessions’ decision returns one section of asylum rules to the pre-Obama practices and helps implement one of the “four pillars” in President Donald Trump’s immigration reform. Sessions wrote:

I reiterate that an applicant for asylum on account of her membership in a purported particular social group must demonstrate: (1) membership in a particular group, which is composed of members who share a common immutable characteristic, is defined with particularity, and is socially distinct within the society in question; (2) that her membership in that group is a central reason for her persecution; and (3) that the alleged harm is inflicted by the government of her home country or by persons that the government is unwilling or unable to control[.]

Sessions is using his legal authority to take many other measures to curb migration across the southern border. These measures do not reverse the pro-migration laws set in place by Congress, but he is speeding up immigration courts, hiring more judges, prosecuting all illegal migrants — including those who bring children to exploit the 1997 Flores loophole — and is reversing several other pro-migration decisions.

Unsurprisingly, Sessions’ reset has enraged progressives in Congress.

Pro-migration activists were also angry at Sessions’ reversal of their Obama-era gains.

The ACLU described Sessions’ legal directions as “a virtual death sentence.”

“People fleeing terrorist groups are being told to go to hell, and to die there,” said Frank Sharry, director of America’s Voice.

Immigration lawyers were furious and upset for their clients as they recognized the importance of Sessions’ decision, both for their clients and their political goal of easy migration.

Amnesty advocates use business-funded pollsters to conduct “Nation of Immigrants” push-polls which show apparent voter-support for DACA amnesty, for immigration, and immigrants. Those pollsters also push their clients’ preferences when they advise their political clients.

But “Choice” polls reveal most voters’ often-ignored strong preference that CEOs should hire Americans at decent wages before hiring migrants. Those pro-American preferences are held by many blue-collar Blacks, Latinos, and by people who hide their opinions from pollsters.

Similarly, the 2018 polls show that GOP voters are far more concerned about migration — more properly, the economics of migration — than they are concerned about illegal migration and MS-13, taxes, or the return of Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

 

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