Dem Sen. Murphy: ‘Many in My Party’ ‘Don’t Want to Admit’ We Can’t Take ‘Unlimited Number of Asylum Seekers’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) stated that the United States can’t take an unlimited number of asylum seekers, even though “there are many in my party who don’t want to admit that,” and the U.S. will have to limit the number of people it grants asylum to, encourage applicants to do so from their own country, “and then, frankly, turn those who don’t go through that process back around.”

Murphy stated, “[H]ere’s the question, the question is can we accept an unlimited number of asylum seekers? The answer is no. And so while there are many in my party who don’t want to admit that, we are going to have to make a decision as to how many asylees we can take and then encourage those to be processed in their home country, and then, frankly, turn those who don’t go through that process back around. Now, that is a very difficult thing to do, because many of these people are in desperate straits, but we do just have to admit there is a limit to how many asylees we can take over the course of a given year.”

He added that we need to hire more people to process asylum claims so there’s a match between applications and people processing.

Murphy also said there are some instances in which people may not be able to apply for asylum in their home countries.

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