The Department of Homeland Security revealed today the threat of “fake families” declaring asylum en masse at the southern border isn’t a conspiracy theory cooked up by the Trump administration.
The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti has more:
The Daily Caller reports that “there has been a 110 percent increase in male adults showing up at the border with children. Further, DHS separated 507 illegal immigrants between April 19 and September 30 because they fraudulently claimed they were part of a family unit.”
Customs and Border Patrol separated 170 “families” for being unable to prove any family relationship. In 139 of those cases, children were removed from the custody of unfamiliar adults. In other cases, “families” were separated after Border Patrol agents discovered that a person claiming to be a child was actually older than 18.
DHS blames the rise squarely on the Flores case, a Clinton-era court ruling which prevents illegal immigrant children from being held in custody while they await an asylum hearing, allowing children and their parents to, instead, remain in a residential setting inside the U.S. until they’re up for assessment.
“Aliens know that if they bring ANY minor with them they will be apprehended by Border Patrol and released into the interior of the United States,” a spokeswoman for DHS told the Washington Examiner. “This is a direct result of the Clinton-era Flores Settlement decree that has created a massive loophole which allows alien family units to illegally cross the border and enter the United States after a short detention. This well-known loophole acts a magnet for family units and entices smugglers to use children as a way to gain access to the United States by posing a family unit. Word has gotten out.”
Currently, DHS follows a modified “catch-and-release” program, detaining asylum-seeking families who prove they’re related for the maximum allowed time before fitting adults with ankle bracelet monitors.