The New York Times, of all places, is reporting that large numbers of people at the border who said that they wanted to seek asylum in the USA have given up and gone home. The Times says that of 6000 people who had arrived at the border in November to seek asylum supposedly because conditions were so dangerous in their home countries, 1000 or more have accepted the offer of Mexico to stay there and over 1000 have gone home. The Times quotes on woman who came from Honduras as saying, "I like Tijuana. It's a very pretty city and there's plenty of work." There were shelters that had been set up in Tijuana that housed 2500 people waiting to come to the USA, but the shelter recently closed because there were fewer than 200 people still in it. The numbers of people who have returned home or who are staying in Mexico is not fully known; there is no accurate count. It easily could be more than the 2000 plus mentioned above.
So what does this all mean? The answer is simple: the President's policies are working. Thousands of people who were told that the way to jump the line to get into the USA was to apply for asylum and then disappear once in the USA have learned that such conduct no longer works. They can't game the system. There just aren't going to be huge loopholes to walk through anymore. As word of this spreads back across Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, there aren't going to be more caravans of people making the dangerous journey to the USA for entry outside the law. After all, why would someone spend two months traveling to the US border only to end up waiting months more to try for entry, especially since the likely result is that they won't qualify for asylum.
Look, there are people around the world who do qualify for asylum in the USA. The system ought to function so that those people can get entry without being buried under the avalanche of false claims. The Trump policy is moving the asylum system back to where it was supposed to be.
So what does this all mean? The answer is simple: the President's policies are working. Thousands of people who were told that the way to jump the line to get into the USA was to apply for asylum and then disappear once in the USA have learned that such conduct no longer works. They can't game the system. There just aren't going to be huge loopholes to walk through anymore. As word of this spreads back across Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, there aren't going to be more caravans of people making the dangerous journey to the USA for entry outside the law. After all, why would someone spend two months traveling to the US border only to end up waiting months more to try for entry, especially since the likely result is that they won't qualify for asylum.
Look, there are people around the world who do qualify for asylum in the USA. The system ought to function so that those people can get entry without being buried under the avalanche of false claims. The Trump policy is moving the asylum system back to where it was supposed to be.
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