On Thursday, August 1, Utah Senator Mike Lee told a U.S. Senate Committee that the current asylum laws allow human traffickers to bring children across the border and sell them as sex slaves. I agree with him. The currents laws encourage illegal immigrant “families” to bring children, many of whom are not related, and use them as a “pass” to gain quick access to the interior of the U.S.
Sen. Lee said, "Children are brought to the border by cartels who know the U.S. government will essentially complete the trafficking route for them at the end of the road by releasing the child into the interior, in some cases to sponsors who claim to be relatives but in fact are only the final link in the trafficking chain. The fates of these children are horrible. What they suffer is grotesque."
These children are used by illegal aliens as a “get-in-free-and-quick” pass because they cannot be separated as “families,” and because the adults and their children can’t be held in detention more than 20 days. The “families” are released and given a court date for an asylum hearing, but over 90% of them are never seen again.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has proposed legislation that would close the “loophole” in the asylum law and discourage the use and abuse of minors to enter the U.S. illegally.
The legislation increases the number of days a “family” can be held together under the 1997 Flores agreement from 20 to 100 days. This legislation will prevent family separations and extend the time children can be held in custody with their parents.
Also, it requires asylum claims to be filed in Mexico or a home country instead of the United States. This change forces aliens to apply before they come into the U.S. and thus prevents them from entering and ignoring court dates.
The legislation also provides funding for 500 new immigration judges to process the thousands of illegal aliens being apprehended weekly.
Finally, it allows unaccompanied minors from Central America to be sent back to their home countries similar to unaccompanied minors from Canada and Mexico. This legislation is significant because illegal alien minors (mostly from Central America) are being used to enter the U.S. The deportation of juveniles and adults will discourage illegal immigration and abuse of the children.
Of course, the Democrats in the Senate, who want open borders and oppose the rule of law, have opposed the legislation.
However, as if to emphasize the need for the legislation, a nine-year child was rescued from human traffickers right here in San Antonio on Wednesday, July 31.