Thursday, New York Rep. Tom Suozzi and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick urged President Biden to eliminate asylum abuses and “bring order to the border” by executive action.
The Democrats and Republicans joined forces to demand that the White House crackdown on gangs benefitting from the US border issue and grant legal work permits to over 1 million undocumented spouses of US citizens.
“Americans want action. We need the president because Congress has failed,” Suozzi said at a Thursday afternoon press conference.
He said that organized criminal ‘coyotes’ are exploiting the 1980 asylum system for Cold War defectors.
The legislator added that 1.1 million undocumented persons married to US citizens who have lived here for decades need work permits to pay taxes and come out of the shadows.
“We need a smart and sensible immigration system to support families and protect the border,” Fitzpatrick said.
“I am proud to partner with Rep. Suozzi on this bipartisan letter to President Biden urging him to take executive action on sensible immigration reforms to begin fixing our country’s broken immigration process.”
The congressmen wrote to the president Thursday morning to raise the credible fear requirement for vetting migrants and prohibit all asylum seekers between border ports.
According to a copy acquired by The Post, Suozzi and Fitzpatrick wrote, “Today, the asylum process is being misused by many who are not fleeing persecution, but who have been instructed to tailor their response to satisfy the low ‘credible fear’ standard
When passed in 1980, the Refugee Act helped those “fleeing communist and authoritarian regimes.”
The legislators claimed, “Cartel coyotes have been responsible for coaching and shepherding desperate migrants on their entry into the US between ports of entry.”
By teaching migrants the language needed to access asylum, migrants are presenting false stories during credible fear exams, gaining access to the U.S. for years, only to be denied entry by an immigration court judge,” they said, citing the fiscal year 2023 asylum grants of 18%.
“You have broad authority to prevent this abuse by limiting asylum between ports of entry and raising the credible fear standard,” Suozzi and Fitzpatrick said.
Biden might potentially utilize his executive authority to provide work permits to US citizen spouses through a military program that allows service personnel to modify their spouse or parents’ immigration status.
“Using this authority for undocumented, long-term contributor spouses married to U.S. citizens would keep families together and expand our tax-payer labor force,” they wrote. Additionally, these work licenses for immigrant spouses are expected to boost U.S. GDP by $16 billion.
As polls show the president trailing former President Donald Trump on immigration, the Biden administration proposed tightening other asylum-related screening steps early Thursday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson called the administration’s efforts “window dressing” on Fox News Thursday.
“Window dressing. “He could use section 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act today and close the border,” Johnson said on “Fox and Friends.”
I even read it to President Biden—he knows he has that authority. “He refused to accept that it was the law, which is absurd,” the House speaker charged.
He then refused to utilize it. He should reinstall Remain in Mexico to block the border. The border patrol claims that would cut the flow by 70%.
House Republicans impeached Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in February for mishandling the record-breaking number of migrants who entered the US each year.
The Democrat-controlled Senate never tried the case.
