Democrat Rep. Veronica Escobar (TX) is secretly sending staff to Mexico to find and coach migrants who are trying to enter the United States and is instructing them how to “exploit a loophole” to game the asylum process, multiple U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials allege.
The Washington Examiner reports that, according to the National Border Patrol Council’s El Paso chapter and several CBP agents, Escobar’s staff is trying to find migrants that have been returned from El Paso, Texas to Mexico “under the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy, then coaching them to pretend they cannot speak Spanish to exploit a loophole letting them return to the U.S.”
A senior union official shared evidence supporting their claims with the Examiner and said, “What we believe is happening is Veronica Escobar’s office is going … to basically second-guess and obstruct work already done by the Border Patrol.”
Under the “remain in Mexico” policy, “anyone returned must be fluent in Spanish because they may have to reside in Mexico up to five years until a U.S. federal judge decides their asylum claim.”
Officials claim that Escobar’s aides, who have sought interviews with thousands of migrants who were sent back to Mexico, are escorting the migrants back to the port of entry and are lying to CBP officials, telling them the migrants don’t speak Spanish despite the fact that they spoke Spanish to the officials at an earlier date.
“What we’re hearing from management is that they’re attempting to return people, and the story was changed in Mexico, where a person who understood Spanish before now doesn’t understand — where a person who didn’t have any health issues before now has health issues,” a union official said. “They went through and interviewed everybody, cherry-picked them, brought them back, and now are using them as tag lines. They’re going over there and manufacturing a lot of these issues.”
Mark H. Metcalf, a former federal immigration judge, told the Examiner that a criminal case could be brought against Escobar if she is found to be involved in the alleged scheme, which amounts to fraud and making false statements to U.S. officials.
The Examiner added that a DHS official noted the obvious, that Democrats “are furious” that these migrants are not allowed to “await their court dates in the U.S., where they have the opportunity to disappear and slip into the interior never to be seen again.”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria ran a segment on Sunday about the problems with the asylum system in the U.S., saying that President Donald Trump is right about the situation and that fraud is rampant in the system and that the system is being abused and not used for the purpose that it was created for.
Trump has made numerous statements about problems with the asylum process, including recently on Twitter:
“The Democrats are allowing a ridiculous asylum system and major loopholes to remain as a mainstay of our immigration system. Mexico is likewise doing NOTHING, a very bad combination for our Country. Homeland Security is being sooo very nice, but not for long!”
“I want to give the Democrats every last chance to quickly negotiate simple changes to Asylum and Loopholes. This will fix the Southern Border, together with the help that Mexico is now giving us. Probably won’t happen, but worth a try. Two weeks and big Deportation begins!”
“Bipartisan Humanitarian Aid Bill for the Southern Border just passed. A great job done by all! Now we must work to get rid of the Loopholes and fix Asylum. Thank you also to Mexico for the work being done on helping with Illegal Immigration – a very big difference!”
“The Democrats should change the Loopholes and Asylum Laws so lives will be saved at our Southern Border. They said it was not a crisis at the Border, that it was all just “manufactured.” Now they admit that I was right – But they must do something about it. Fix the Laws NOW!”