Most asylum seekers don't have valid claims for asylum. They are economic migrants that are bogging down the system for valid asylum cases. Bogging down a system that was not built for it results in overcrowding, long delays and other pretty shitty things. Thats why congress needs to take further action to 1) limit the number of invalid claims making it into the system and 2) make sure DHS/ICE has the proper resources to deal with it all.

The current administration has been crystal-clear that it intends to reduce legal and illegal immigration through all means available.

One of these means is lengthening the asylum-seeking process and requirements. Another is reducing the allowed number of successful asylum seekers through informal quotas.

The current administration has done both. They are intentionally gumming up the asylum system in order to make good on their campaign promises.

"It's the fault of invalid economic migrants" is a talking point.

What you see as “lengthening the process”, others see as actually aligning the process with the laws.

HN loves to rail against the corrupt H1-B system, but apparently actually getting asylum seekers is amoral.

What would be more honest is to say “I don’t like cheap tech labor, so therefore clamping down on H1-Bs is good.” And “I don’t like the Trump administration and I want an open immigration system, so what Trump is doing to asylum seekers is bad.”

It’s all politics.

Failing to or refusing to seek asylum in an adjacent safe country (i.e., Mexico) is an automatic no-go on an asylum claim.

Also, claiming asylum because of local criminal elements (non-state actors) is an automatic no-go for an asylum claim.

(Note, Obama's DOJ fucked this one up by letting an immigration judge (unlawfully) grant an asylum claim because of local non-state criminal threats.) Hence, the flood gates opened and people began sending women and children first, rather than adults to sneak in and find work.

> What you see as “lengthening the process”, others see as actually aligning the process with the laws.

It is lengthening the process no matter how I or anyone "sees" it. It's comparative, I didn't give a value judgement.

It is all politics. Part of the current administration's campaign promises was to let in less immigrants. They now take political moves to do so, including lengthening the asylum process.

There are other reasons besides not liking cheap tech labor to not like H1-B visas. Because they are tied to employers, workers that hold them are easier to abuse, as they have few other options. Other people don't like that it is based on a lottery system, and so companies that request the most H1B visas will get the most H1B visas.

It is not dissonant to believe that H1B should be reduced or removed in its entirety but other visas and legal immigration avenues should be also be opened up.

H1-B visas and asylum seekers are two entirely different things, I'm not sure why you're trying to conflate them.

Edit: arguing about the legality of the asylum seekers is also missing the point.

The point is, people like to claim “immigration good”, but when you dig down into their actions, you find their actual views are heavily influenced by self-serving goals.

Asylum seekers are supposed to stop in the first country available. Mexico grants people asylum. So you should ask yourself, why aren't they applying there? Because they aren't fleeing imminent physical danger, that's why. They are abusing the system to cover being economic migrants, and they are assisted in this by NGOs with questionable motives.[1][2][3]

People who cross national borders, without documentation, and not at designated points of entry, are NOT "immigrants". They are illegal aliens. People need to stop conflating the two.

[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48548031

[2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/as-trump-t...

[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJlOmMj21uM

These aren't people fleeing genocide. These are people leaving Mexico. And they're being put in hotels and buses.

It's easy to pretend you're fellow Americans are monsters, but they're not.

> These aren't people fleeing genocide. These are people leaving Mexico.

No, they are people fleeing violence in Central America through Mexico, in large part.

That violence, incidentally, is in substantial part resulting from the US training nonviolent drug war criminals into extremely violent criminals in its original and then deporting then to Central America what they have no substantial roots.

>>>No, they are people fleeing violence in Central America through Mexico, in large part.

If you are passing through one country because you desire to get to a specific destination, you are basically asylum shopping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_shopping

Or, you know, the country you are passing through presents (for overlapping, though not identical reasons) reasons the same dangers that you are escaping from, so it's not any kind of escape.

My very cursory understanding of the international legal agreements on this subject don't seem to take that into account. In other words: that problem does not create a legal obligation on the US's part to accommodate them, nor does it put a legal obligation on Mexico or any other intermediate state to facilitate their transfer.

> My very cursory understanding of the international legal agreements on this subject don't seem to take that into account.

Even nativist politicians making incorrect claims about the law here tend to claim it requires efforts to seek asylum in the first safe country, which even if true would, in fact, fully take into account the problem of an intervening country that shared the same problem being fled from in the country of nationality or habitual residence. See, e.g., referring to this claim:

https://fullfact.org/immigration/refugees-first-safe-country...

Hotels? If you call jail (on a good day) a hotel then I have a bridge to sell you. And yes we put them on busses to get them back because it is cheeper than flying them.

> These aren't people fleeing genocide.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...

You as an American should not go there, but them fleeing here is problematic?

Crime != genocide. And asylum cases require specific threats to your life not just "it's not nice there and I want to come to the US".

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/asylum-or-refugee-st...