Trump’s asylum action will help ease the border crisis

Word has gotten out south of Texas that anyone hoping to flee violence or poverty in their own country need touch American soil, find a Border Patrol agent, and turn oneself in, requesting asylum. The vast majority of migrants who do this are breaking the law when they float the short distance across the Rio Grande and come ashore without authorization. But that crime is effectively canceled out the moment they say “asylum.” Moreover, 90% of the time, the asylum claim, no matter how frivolous, grants them the right to remain in the country while they await a court hearing that may not come for up to five years.

That is an abuse of American generosity intended to offer refuge for people abroad genuinely fearing for their lives and persecuted by their governments.

We understand why these men and women from Latin America want to be in the U.S. Ours is the land of opportunity, and many of our neighbor countries lack the capitalist economies and robust property rights needed to provide such opportunity.

But the asylum law was not supposed to be an invitation to unlimited economic migration. But that is how the law is currently functioning, with Central Americans making their way here by the tens of thousands every month. They have learned exactly how to push the system’s buttons in order to secure long-term permission to be inside the U.S., and this is why detention centers near the border are overflowing.

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