North Charlotte Today

Senator Thom Tillis and his colleagues have addressed a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland, raising concerns over the Biden Administration’s handling of asylum cases. The senators argue that the administration's policies are undermining the U.S. legal immigration system.

“We write to you today regarding recent reports of the Biden administration's purported ‘mass amnesty’ for illegal aliens. According to a recent article published by the New York Post on June 2, 2024, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) detailed the dismissal of over 350,000 removal cases since 2022 under the guise of prosecutorial discretion,” stated the senators.

They further criticized President Biden’s executive order invoking sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The order aims to close down the southern border if illegal crossings exceed an average of 2,500 per day over seven days. “This action is too little, too late, and its numerous exceptions make clear that the Administration is more interested in creating the appearance of an orderly border than stopping illegal crossings. It is also an implicit admission of the administration’s failure to manage the border crisis effectively from the outset,” they continued.

The senators expressed their discontent with what they perceive as a downplaying of the border crisis by this Administration. “This Administration’s approach has consistently downplayed the severity of the border crisis, initially denying its existence, then reluctantly acknowledging it, and now attempting to address it through inadequate measures. The repeated failures in border management under your leadership have led to an unprecedented backlog of 3.5 million asylum cases, posing a substantial burden on our immigration system and increasing risk criminal activities by illegal aliens,” they concluded.

Text of the full letter is available HERE.

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