BY LINDA BENTLEY | AUGUST 6, 2014
Asylum claims don’t hold water
CAVE CREEK – As we’re being invaded by tens of thousands of unaccompanied alien children and adults from Central America orchestrated by the Obama administration, crossing into south Texas reciting rehearsed lines to claim asylum, Mark Krikorian (r), executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, pointed out a little problem with their claims.
Even accepting for argument’s sake that they are refugees seeking asylum, Krikorian said, “They still should be turned away.”
Citing the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which states under Article 31 – Refugees unlawfully in the country of refuge:
“1. The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”
This particular section indicates they may seek refuge when coming “directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened.”
Which means, these Central Americans traveled roughly 1,000 miles through Mexico, the country in which they should have claimed asylum if their claims are genuine.
Krikorian said these Central Americans should not even be allowed to apply for asylum in the United States if they passed through other countries.
Asylum, he explained, is designed for people willing to go anywhere to escape their plight, not pick and choose a country.
Krikorian stated, “If the Central Americans surging into South Texas are seeking asylum, they have an obligation to seek it in Mexico, rather than traverse the entire length of that country’s territory to reach someplace with a more fully developed welfare state where they already have relatives. Mexico’s per capita GDP is well over double that of the any of the three countries in question (triple that of Honduras). What’s more, not one of Mexico’s states bordering on Central America (Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Quintana Roo) is subject to a State Department travel warning. If the State Department says it’s safe for Americans to travel to those places, why wouldn’t we expect Central Americans to be safe there as well?”
Rather than the “counterproductive HUMANE Act,” the acronym for Helping Unaccompanied Minors and Alleviating National Emergency, introduced by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Krikorian suggested a simple statutory change so that it bars outright any asylum claim from someone who passed through a country where he should have made that claim first.
