Acting Attorney General Ends Asylum Eligibility for Immigrants Who Enter Illegally

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Trump’s acting Attorney General has suspended asylum for aliens who cross the border illegally.  

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker was joined Thursday by Department of Homeland Security Director Kirstjen Nielsen declaring that aliens who enter the southern U.S. border illegally will be ineligible for asylum.  

Whitaker and Nielsen issued the following statement Thursday:  “Consistent with our immigration laws, the President has the broad authority to suspend or restrict the entry of aliens into the United States if he determines it to be in the national interest to do so. Today's rule applies this important principle to aliens who violate such a suspension or restriction regarding the southern border imposed by the President by invoking an express authority provided by Congress to restrict eligibility for asylum.  Our asylum system is overwhelmed with too many meritless asylum claims from aliens who place a tremendous burden on our resources, preventing us from being able to expeditiously grant asylum to those who truly deserve it. Today, we are using the authority granted to us by Congress to bar aliens who violate a Presidential suspension of entry or other restriction from asylum eligibility.”

The new directive means those immigrants in the caravan will have to cross the border at official points of entry like San Diego, CA, Yuma, AZ and El Paso, TX.  Those official points of entry are already overcrowded.

The initiative likely will face legal challenges as an estimated 10,000 immigrants are headed to the southern border in Mexico.  The ruling may mean many of them will have to accept jobs in Mexico.