Most people don’t understand how the illegal immigration process works. Hell, most Border Patrol Agents don’t understand how it works. After 20 years in the Border Patrol, I’m still not entirely clear about how all of it works. However, I do know more about it than the average bear, so, I will try to enlighten people with what I do know.
Right now, the big headlines are that ICE is going into the sanctuary cities of Boston and Chicago. The arrests and the protests will get all the media coverage. However, after the arrests, the illegal aliens have to be transported, processed, housed, and fed somewhere. After that, they will get their day in court, and most, will likely be ordered deported. It’s a labor intensive process, just writing one illegal alien up used to take around two and a half hours.
Here are some things that a lot of people won’t know about. First up, Asylum Officers. Asylum Officer is a relatively new position. The Asylum Corps was first implemented in 1990 (according to search.brave which uses AI).
In his first term, Donald Trump stabbed Jeff Sessions in the back by reversing AG Sessions’ Zero Tolerance policy towards family separation. As a result, there was a flood of humanity that crossed the border illegally (not at a Port of Entry) using their children as both passport and visa. Presidential advisor Stephen Miller was tasked with bringing the border situation under control. Among other things, Stephen Miller (who had previously worked for Jeff Sessions) looked at Asylum Officers. Now, “Asylum Officer” is sort of a misnomer because asylum officers don’t actually grant asylum. They take down the alien’s claims of why the alien believes he/she/it is entitled to asylum in the United States. Asylum Officers conduct a “non-adversarial” interview. Afterwards, the Asylum Officer decides if the illegal alien has a reasonable probability of success in Immigration Court. If the answer is yes, then the illegal alien can be released on their own recognizance (OR-ed) and let go on their merry way. However, if the answer is no, then the illegal alien still gets their day in court, but gets held in custody to await the actual trial. Those that get released on their own recognizance often have court dates years down the road. I heard that New York City’s backlog was seven years long! I witnessed many court dates that were two years away. Those released are much more likely NOT to show up for their trials. The ones in custody pretty much have no choice but to show up for their trials.
I was trained briefly as an Asylum Officer. I was in the second class to go through Asylum Officer training for Border Patrol Agents. I’m not going to lie, it was one of the things that caused me to retire. It was so easy for the illegal alien to lie about their background in order to get asylum and the onus was placed on me, the Asylum Officer, to prove that they were full of it. Add to that, this was supposed to be a “non-adversarial” interview, so, unlike all my past Border Patrol training, when someone told me a blatant lie, I couldn’t confront them on it. I had to sort of tip toe around it without saying, “I know you just lied to me, now cut the bull and tell me the truth.” If I were to approve of one of them getting released from custody, then there was some paperwork to do. However, if I were to deny someone, there was more paperwork to do. On top of it, my work would have to be approved by a Supervisory Asylum Officer. The whole thing started giving me anxiety attacks. I SIGNED UP TO DEPORT PEOPLE!!! Not to let them in, and I felt very strongly about that.
When Biden came into office, Mayorkas tried to make Asylum Officers actually be able to grant asylum. That would have been a disaster. Most of the Asylum Officers I met were of the far left variety. They would have let everyone in.
The first class of Border Patrol Agents trained as Asylum Officers were all out in California. Now, most asylum applicants had a 90% rate of being released into the country. The BP Agents in California reversed that and had a 90% lock up rate. At that point, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) put the program on hold. That’s when I retired, but they did keep the program going afterwards.
Frankly, I believe the job title of “Asylum Officer” should be changed to something else since they don’t grant asylum despite the name. How about “Traitors who let far too many liars into the country”? Is that a bit too long? (Actually, I’m being unfair. There are good Asylum Officers, but they are outnumbered).
Anyway, on to Immigration Judges who aren’t real judges. In fact, Wikipedia tells me they used to be called “Special Inquiry Officers“. As a rule, they are much farther left wing than the population of the United States. Many of them used to be immigration attorneys so they know immigration law very well. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration has ousted over 100 immigration judges with deferred resignation buyout offers.” Hopefully, he gets rid of the right ones. The administration has fired six immigration judges in San Francisco alone. Goodbye, traitors.
You can also judge shop for the jurisdiction where you are most likely to get released, see here.
There’s still a huge backlog of cases, so, what is the Trump administration going to do about that? It was one of my peeves that we often encountered illegal aliens in the Buffalo area who were clearly illegally present in the United States, but they had a pending court date months or years away. We had to just let them go. Answer: “Pete Hegseth Authorizes Defense Department lawyers to Serve as Temporary Immigration Judges.” Good, now, hopefully, those lawyers don’t become woke after hearing a bunch of liars and their made up sob stories.
OK, this brings us to the immigration hearings. Again, these aren’t real trials because these aren’t real judges. In the bad old days of not too long ago, an illegal alien would hop in his car, drive to the immigration court, and have his hearing. If he got deported, he would say “Pinche chingow” and walk out of court, then drive home. He might file an appeal to the EOIR Board Of Immigration Appeals, or, he may just hope that no one comes looking for him. Stephen Miller changed that. Now, if an illegal alien is denied their request for asylum, Deportation Officers (ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations) are on hand to pick up the illegal alien. The aliens can still appeal their cases, but now they get to do so from an ICE detention facility. See them cry about it here. This makes it much more difficult to disappear into the United States without being found.
This has given the Democrats a fake talking point. They claim that illegal aliens (undocumented migrants in their parlance) are being arrested despite their immigration appeals. They leave out that their appeals are still proceeding, the aliens just can’t run away from immigration authorities.
Now, what this leaves out is all the paperwork involved. One of my friends was bitching to me about a processing center being closed down. What this means is that in addition to writing up illegal aliens (a tedious process), now, some of the Agents would have to do prosecutions. An Agent assigned to prosecutions has to review the files, make edits or have the person who wrote the original file make edits, write affidavits, coordinate with prosecutors etc… Usually a station will have at least one Agent assigned full time to “prosecutions” if not more at the larger stations. This isn’t a big deal to some of the larger stations like the McAllen Station that has plenty of Agents but not a lot to do as things have been very slow, but it is a big deal to some of the smaller stations farther north in the interior. Ideally, since the border is effectively shut down, some of the Agents who are bored on the banks of the Rio Grande could (should) get reassigned to where the action is, like San Antonio. They should probably consider reopening the stations that Obama closed down like Amarillo.
In fact, the stations of Dallas, San Antonio, Riverside (CA), Abilene, San Angelo, Lubbock and Amarillo should all be reopened. More interior enforcement please.
I hope this clarifies things a little bit.
20 year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol. Author of "What Bridge Do You Work At? Or, Kids Are Cute; Therefore, Open Borders" & "East into the Sunset: Memories of patrolling in the Rio Grande Valley at the turn of the century". Books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, as well as Thrift Books.
Master's Degree in Justice, Law and Society from American University.
Grew up partly in Europe.
