I will no longer allow our asylum laws to be exploited by human traffickers, smugglers and cartels. Cartels, smugglers and human traffickers are profiting off immigrants and helping them take advantage of our broken asylum laws. - Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Twitter 8/1/2018
FoxNews.com reports that
The Senate Judiciary Committee erupted with infighting Thursday as a top Republican lawmaker pushed legislation aimed at crafting new rules for asylum-seekers from Central American countries.
The committee eventually approved the bill on a narrow 12-10 vote — but only after Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., battled accusations that he was violating Senate rules by taking up the measure after the panel fell one Democrat shy of a quorum at a related meeting last week.
“Why even have rules?” Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked rhetorically. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., backed her up, saying, “If the majority is willing to break any rule in order to report this bill today, there are no rules.”
Graham defended the move, stating the bill had been ready to move forward for seven weeks and Democrats intentionally did not show up last week in an effort to stymie the legislation.
“I’m not changing the rules,” Graham said, noting that the rules allow a majority of the committee to decide to vote.
Graham said that if he allows the Democrats to get their way, “the committee becomes irrelevant.”
“It would be different if I had not tried. For seven weeks I withheld marking up this bill and I got nowhere,” Graham said angrily. “What you’re telling me is I should ignore what you did to me last week. I will not.”
In an uncomfortable moment, Graham addressed Leahy directly, stating, “Senator Leahy, you’ve been here a long time. I would never have done this to you,” only for Leahy to state that he missed last week’s meeting “because a member of my family was being buried.”
Graham immediately offered condolences but noted that he had been told Democrats would not show up for political reasons.
Graham also alleged that Democrats skipping the meeting were trying to disempower him. “You’re not going to take my job away from me!” he said.
The bill itself calls for asylum claims from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to be made at refugee centers to be set up in Central America and Mexico.
VAdditionally, the bill calls for 500 new immigration judges so that cases are handled more swiftly, reducing the current backlog of cases.
“I don’t want to separate families, I want to adjudicate families,” Graham said Thursday.
The bill would also allow unaccompanied children from Central America to be sent back to their home country after screening, as is the case with children who enter from Canada and Mexico.
Feinstein said the bill would repeal a requirement for minimum standards at facilities, giving sole authority over the standards to the Department of Homeland Security, without any judicial review. Feinstein mentioned that seven children have died in U.S. custody thus far due to poor conditions.
“The Graham bill doesn’t fix these problems, it will only make them worse,” Feinstein said.
Feinstein also asserted that it would only “increase problems at the border” by allowing children to be detained in poor conditions longer than the current system permits.
This was in reference to a provision in the bill which would also override a court settlement agreement that caps child detention at 20 days, allowing families to be held together for up to 100 days.
Graham has claimed that requiring children – and those accompanying them – to be released after 20 days has allowed for fraud. Graham told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo in July that 30 percent of those who cross into the U.S. with children are “fake families,” and that loopholes are used to let the same children come back over and over, bringing different adults with them.
“I will no longer allow our asylum laws to be exploited by human traffickers, smugglers and cartels,” Graham said in a statement Thursday. “Cartels, smugglers and human traffickers are profiting off immigrants and helping them take advantage of our broken asylum laws. I will no longer allow the loopholes in our laws to be exploited. I will not aid and abet these horrific practices. My bill fixes these problems.”
I agree wholeheartedly with Sen. Graham.
Gentle readers, do you remember when all of these “migrants” began arriving from Central America?
It was the spring and summer of 2014 under the benevolent reign of King Barack The first, when 50,000-100,000 unaccompanied minors made the long arduous journey from Central America across Mexico to our Southern border, where they were graciously welcomed to our Sovereign Nation by President Obama.
Even though a significant number of these “unaccompanied minors” were found to be carrying measles and other childhood diseases which our country had all but eradicated, they were spirited away on military transport planes to bases around the country and were later dispersed among our general population.
This “migration” from the “Northern Triangle” continues to have a very bad smell to it…and I’m not talking about the migrants themselves.
Just as there has been copious amounts of money spent by George Soros and other financial backers of the Far Left Democratic Party to disrupt the candidacy and presidency of Donald J. Trump, I believe that there is an even shadier political element to this “migration”.
The Democrats could care less about the unaccompanied children who are attempting to break into our Sovereign Nation, bringing diseases with them.
They want new Democratic Voters to replace “woke” black Americans and other Democrats who have left the party and support President Trump, like the wonderful Candace Owens.
Just as they did during the Obama Administration and the 2018 Presidential Campaign, the Democrats are greatly underestimating the American People and greatly overestimating their own intelligence.
Average Americans in the Heartland see and know what the Dems are doing.
And, we do not like it one bit.
This is the exact sort of political garbage which led to the election of an American Businessman and Entrepreneur as the 45th President of the United States of America.
If this, indeed, is one of the main things that the Democrats will push as a “crisis” going into the 2020 Presidential Election, their public display of “compassion” will have all of the impact of a wet firecracker.
Sure, the Main Stream Media will play it up, but average Americans quit listening to them years ago.
The only thing that the Democrats support of the “Migrant Caravans” has accomplished is to show Americans whom the Democrats actually care about…and it is sure not average American Citizens
By the way, Sen. Graham is acting as if a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders.
He has been a new man, a Conservative Dynamo, since the passing of his mentor, Sen. John McCain.
A “Woke” Lindsey has turned in to a great advocate for average Americans.
And, that’s a good thing.
Until He Comes,
KJ
Excellent article!!
The people ARE being exploited just as senator Graham said!
I live near Houston.
We are aware of ‘coyotes’ leaving people to die … locked in hot trailers. We are aware of rapes and human trafficking and drugs and many horrific crimes that are done against illegals and horrific crimes committed by illegals.
Sen. Lindsey Graham is absolutely correct!
Thank you …Love Lindsey Ghram !
Thank you
Great job 👍 💯
Interesting
Graham thinks that he is king. He is subordinate to the will of we the people.
All these loopholes have to be closed , please Mr. President stop all this stuff or we will lose the elections and if you lose well AMERICA loses !!!!!!