Border and Immigration DOES enforce the laws.

We DO attempt to stop them from coming illegally. The rate of apprehension for allegedly crossing the border illegally is at a 40-year low. In 2000, approximately 1.6 million individuals were apprehended. In 2017, about 310,000 were apprehended. Of those, about 60% were individuals who overstayed their visas after flying here from elsewhere. Their port of entry had a wall. They were in an airport.

You can request asylum from inside or outside the border. You just have to be at the border AT LEAST to request asylum. You can request asylum even if you are already in the country, legally or illegally. That part is US and International laws. Just because someone is an asylum seeker does not mean they are necessarily broke either.

I believe the southern border asylum seekers do qualify.

Here is what it says on the American Immigration Council website, “Asylum is a protection granted to foreign nationals already in the United States or at the border who meet the international law definition of a “refugee.” The United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol define a refugee as a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country and cannot obtain protection in that country due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Congress incorporated this definition into U.S. immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980.

As a signatory to the 1967 Protocol, and through U.S. immigration law, the United States has legal obligations to provide protection to those who qualify as refugees. The Refugee Act established two paths to obtain refugee status—either from abroad as a resettled refugee or in the United States as an asylum seeker.”

Notice where it says, “The United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol define a refugee as a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

“unable or unwilling” is pretty straightforward. The persecution they are suffering in their home country is not only well known and documented, it’s also caused by the US Government meddling in other countries. They are members of the political opposition we installed through our meddling.

It’s actually quite fitting they ask for asylum from the US. We caused the issue.

This is a very complicated issue that isn’t resolved with a single act. We already have barriers from El Paso to the Pacific Ocean where a barrier makes sense.

From the Texas border to the Gulf of Mexico, most of that land is privately owned. Building a wall there would be taking land from landowners just as you rail about with mining. Then there are the vast stretches where a wall makes no sense or is impracticable to build, so we would end up walling off miles of US territory to erect it on stable ground.

Because this is a complicated issue, we have to trust the system. Blanket statements do not apply because every individual is different with different circumstances.