New York Rep. Tom Suozzi and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick urged President Biden on Thursday to end asylum abuses and “bring order to the border” through executive action.
The Democrat and Republican, respectively, joined forces to demand that the White House crack down on cartels profiting from the US border crisis — and extend legal work permits to more than 1 million undocumented people who have long resided in the country as the spouses of US citizens.
“Americans want action. Congress has failed to act, and we now need the president,” Suozzi declared at a Thursday afternoon press conference.
“Organized crime ‘coyotes’ are scamming the asylum system enacted in 1980 that was designed to help Cold War defectors,” he said.
“Additionally, 1.1 million undocumented people living here for decades and married to US citizens need a work permit to allow them to pay taxes and come out from the shadows, the lawmaker continued.
“We need a smart and sensible immigration system to support families and protect the border,” Fitzpatrick added.
“I am proud to partner with Rep. Suozzi on this bipartisan letter to President Biden urging him to take executive action on sensible immigration reforms to begin fixing our country’s broken immigration process.”
The congressmen sent a letter to the president on Thursday morning that requested raising the credible fear standard to vet migrants — and blocking all asylum seekers from coming in between ports of entry on the border.
“Today, the asylum process is being misused by many who are not fleeing persecution, but who have been instructed to tailor their response to satisfy the low ‘credible fear’ standard,” Suozzi and Fitzpatrick wrote, according to a copy obtained by The Post.
When established in 1980, the Refugee Act that allows for asylum claims had aided those “fleeing communist and authoritarian regimes.”
Now, the lawmakers said, “Cartel coyotes have been responsible for coaching and shepherding desperate migrants on their entry into the US between ports of entry.”
“By instructing migrants on the language necessary to access the asylum process, migrants are presenting falsified stories during credible fear exams, gaining access to the U.S. for years, only to ultimately be denied entry by an immigration court judge,” they added, pointing to just 18% of those with credible fear claims being granted asylum by courts in fiscal year 2023.
“You have broad authority to prevent this abuse by limiting use of asylum between ports of entry and by raising the credible fear standard,” Suozzi and Fitpatrick pressed.
They also said Biden could use his executive authority to grant work permits to spouses of US citizens through a military program that allows service members to change their spouse or parents immigration status.
“Using this authority for undocumented, long-term contributor spouses married to U.S. citizens would keep families together and expand our tax-payer labor force,” the pair wrote. “In addition, it is estimated that these work permits for immigrant spouses will generate $16 billion in growth to U.S. GDP.”
The Biden administration floated plans to tighten some other asylum-related screening measures early Thursday, as polls show the president lagging behind his opponent, former President Donald Trump, on his handling of immigration.
House Speaker Mike Johnson ripped the administration’s plans as “window dressing” in an appearance Thursday on Fox News.
“It’s window dressing. He could use section 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act today and close the border entirely,” Johnson said on “Fox and Friends.”
“He knows he has that authority, I even read it to President Biden myself. First, he refused to accept that it was actually the law, which is nonsense,” the House speaker needled.
“And then he refused to use it. If he really wanted to close the border he would reinstate Remain in Mexico. That’s what the border patrol says would reduce the flow by 70%.”
Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by House Republicans in February for his mishandling of the record-breaking numbers of migrants that have rushed into the US every year of the administration.
The Democrat-controlled Senate never took up the trial.
