Hot off the presses at the Center for Immigration Studies is a new report: ‘Asylum in the United States: How a finely tuned system of checks and balances has been effectively dismantled.’
Here is what CIS says about it in a press release today:
WASHINGTON, DC (March 26, 2014) — The erosion of checks and balances in the U.S. asylum system, designed to prevent fraud, has led to the nearly tripling of claims for asylum. A Center for Immigration Studies report examines the increased applications as well as the rubberstamping of these applications.
The number of applicants passing the preliminary “credible fear” test nearly tripled from 2012 to 2013, and has increased nearly 600 percent since 2007. Once the applicant receives asylum, they receive access to all major welfare programs.***
Fraud accounts for much of the increase. According to a DHS internal report, 70 percent of asylum applications examined were fraudulent or had strong indicators of fraud. With such a high rate of fraud, it is alarming that DHS statistics show a positive credible fear finding in 92% of all cases decided on the merits.
The CIS report finds that the Senate comprehensive immigration bill would do much to exacerbate the existing problem. Among the list of changes would be the allowing of previous asylum fraudsters to re-apply and allowing asylum to be granted instantly upon application, before any vetting occurs.
Dan Cadman, author of the report and fellow at the Center, said, “Many illegal immigrants have learned how to game the system by applying for asylum as a means of prolonging their time in the United States. If a claimant can pass the preliminary credible fear test they can buy themselves months, often years, living and working legally in the United States. A system designed to stem fraud and abuse has been undone by executive action, agency inaction, and judicial activism.”
Cadman provides nine recommendations of how Congress and the Department of Homeland Security can curb abuses, and set the asylum program on track to function as it was intended. He endorses, for example, a program of routine audits of both credible fear findings and formal asylum grants, which would include investigations of cases found to involve fraud or the withholding of material information.
“Gaming the system” is a worldwide problem as we have learned recently in our “invasion of Europe” series.
***An afterthought: once someone is granted asylum, as mentioned here, they are given all of the same access a refugee has to welfare goodies, and they can expect ‘service’ from the federal refugee contractors. Thus those contractors are lobbying for the so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill because it means an expansion of their “services” and more federal grants coming their way!