February 9, 2024

Fareed: The Border Compromise Would’ve Helped—a Lot

This week, congressional Republicans nixed a Senate compromise on immigration policy, criticizing the deal and claiming President Joe Biden should act more aggressively on his own to deter illegal immigration. That’s unfortunate, Fareed writes for CNN Opinion, arguing the bill would’ve gone a long way toward fixing a broken US asylum system.

Despite what some Republicans claim, Fareed writes, the problem with US immigration is the law itself. Currently, migrants cross the border, make contact with US law enforcement, and claim asylum. They can then remain in the US while their cases are adjudicated by a severely backlogged court system. The Senate compromise included provisions to raise the bar for claiming asylum and to allow the president to deny entry, if a certain number of daily irregular border crossings was met.

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