30-Year Immigration Lawyer Appalled by ICE Document, Says It's One of Most Shocking Things He's Ever Seen
On a web page designed to help people entering the United States from other countries, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says, “Asylum is a form of protection which allows an individual to remain in the United States instead of being removed (deported) to a country where he or she fears persecution or harm.”
“Under U.S. law, people who flee their countries because they fear persecution can apply for asylum,” it says.
While the United States has always been compassionate to those fleeing for their lives from other countries, the Biden administration has opened the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border.
There are now so many claims to process that it could take the federal government eight years to figure out if a person entering the country is even eligible for asylum.
On Wednesday, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin posted documents given to him by Matthew Kolken, an immigration lawyer who was shocked when his client, a Colombian woman applying for asylum, received her check-in papers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Her next check-in date? The year 2031.
“@mkolken, tells me it’s one of the most shocking things he’s seen in his nearly 30 years of immigration law,” Melugin wrote.
“Kolken tells me his client is a legitimate asylum seeker with what he feels is an air tight case, but because the system is so backlogged with illegitimate asylum claims, he’s not sure they’ll ever get a chance to argue it in court with her next check in 8 years into the future,” the Fox News reporter added.
NEW: A Colombian woman who crossed illegally into El Paso, TX & was released into the U.S. was given an ICE check in date in NYC in 2031. Her immigration attorney, @mkolken, tells me it’s one of the most shocking things he’s seen in his nearly 30 years of immigration law. (1/2). pic.twitter.com/A71el4NFfa
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 20, 2023
“It made me realize the Biden administration is basically providing backdoor amnesty for anyone who wants to show up at the border,” Kolken told Melugin.
America welcomes more immigrants than any nation, but we cannot accept the world. Asylum protections in the U.S. were meant to save lives. Now, they have been used to create a chaotic free-for-all at the border that serves neither Americans nor legitimate asylum-seekers.
Fox News reported Tuesday that the immigration court backlog in the United States has surpassed 3 million pending cases, reaching crisis levels, according to a new report. The backlog includes over 1 million cases that were added within the past 12 months.
The report, published by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, found that immigration judges now face an average of 4,500 pending caseloads each. This crushing workload is preventing judges from making progress on the massive backlog of immigration cases.
“The accelerating growth in the Court’s backlog has transformed the problem into an even more daunting challenge,” the TRAC report said.
During the July to September quarter, the backlog grew by nearly 400,000 cases, averaging over 130,000 new cases per month, the report said. The pace continued increasing in October and November to approximately 140,000 new cases per month.
By comparison, the entire backlog in September 2016 was 516,031 cases — about one-sixth the current total.
Not even during the chaos on Ellis Island in the early 20th century did people have to wait for such an absurd amount of time just to know if they were eligible to remain in the country.
After they arrive, many migrants take a selfie to send back home — a sign to others that it’s safe for them to follow.
“It’s a simple act driving an unprecedented surge at our border which Mexican journalist @CabelloAuden dubbed the ‘selfie factor’ – migrants cross into the US, snap a shot and send it back to those waiting to decide whether to come now,” Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins said Wednesday in a post on X.
WATCH: It’s a simple act driving an unprecedented surge at our border which Mexican journal @CabelloAuden dubbed the “selfie factor” – migrants cross into the US, snap a shot and send it back to those waiting to decide whether to come now… @FoxNews @DanaPerino @BillHemmer pic.twitter.com/kAWNaJGKdQ
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) December 20, 2023
Trump-era policies such as the Migrant Protection Protocols (“Remain in Mexico“) and Title 42 worked by ensuring orderly processing and cutting down on false claims. But Biden and his homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, scrapped these rules, flinging open the floodgates.
Now we have a seemingly endless surge of people streaming across our border, claiming asylum while clearly seeking jobs or a “better life,” confident in the tacit compliance of the Biden administration and the fact that they will not even get a court date for years, never mind face actual deportation.
Courts are buried, genuine applicants wait endlessly in limbo, and Americans are being overwhelmed by a deluge of lawbreakers who will never be held to account.
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