Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson toured the southwest border around El Paso, Texas, for two days this week to get a first-hand look at the surge of migrants crossing from Mexico to the United States.
“This flow is out of control and we have to get it under control,” Johnson said Wednesday during an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
He said the “real beneficiaries” of the border surge are “human trafficking cartels,” that are making “hundreds of millions of dollars” and using the border patrol system to their advantage.
“They’re using our law enforcement, turning them into processors for their business model,” Johnson said.
That’s why he decided to do something!
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) plans to introduce legislation that would let the Trump administration detain children for up to 90 days, far more than the current limit of 20 days, the Washington Post reports.
Johnson wants to amend the 1997 Flores settlement, which allows children to remain in immigration detention for no more than 20 days.
He is preparing legislation to tighten asylum standards as the Trump administration greenlights longer detention for migrants and Congress scrambles for a legislative response to the swelling number of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in an interview Wednesday that the focus of his bill would be to more swiftly and rigorously assess the claims of asylum seekers while keeping them detained longer so the government could more easily deport them if their asylum claims are denied.
“You have to have the resources to make the determination quickly, but fairly, while people are in detention,” said Johnson, who just finished a two-day trip to the southern border. “I sure don’t want indefinite detention . . . but we need to be able to hold people long enough” to process claims.
Johnson raised concerns that federal immigration officials were struggling to keep track of where the asylum applicants went once they were left immigration custody. He is considering a maximum detention time of 90 days, although “I’m happy to compromise at 60.”
Do you think that this is a nice move?
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