In a radio appearance on WYDE in Birmingham, Ala. on Tuesday’s edition of Michael Hart’s radio show, Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions reacted to recent reports that U.S. authorities were overseeing a surge in immigrants seeking asylum at the southern U.S. border from Mexican drug cartels.
According to one report, the federal government has been putting immigrants in $99-a-night hotels at taxpayer expense while they await an asylum hearing from a federal judge. According to Sessions, that is improper policy and what should be done is the U.S. authorities should seek Mexican authorities. (RELATED: Feds rent out $99-a-night hotel rooms for illegal immigrants exploiting asylum loophole)
“It is unbelievable what this administration is allowing to happen there,” Sessions said. “I mean, I was a federal prosecutor for nearly 15 years. I’ve prosecuted immigration cases among others. What they’re basically allowing people to do [is] to come into the country and say, ‘I have a credible fear of persecution by drug cartels. I’m claiming asylum in the United States.’ And our officers are saying, ‘OK, we’ll take you downtown and put you in a hotel paid for by our taxpayers’ money and we’ll see if we can’t get us a judge to let you have a trial on whether or not you’re a legitimate asylum seeker.’”
“I mean, this is a guaranteed way to demolish enforcement at the border,” he continued. “What we should say is, ‘Mexico is not a country that is persecuting people.’ It’s a democracy and if anybody claims they’re being persecuted, we ought to call the Mexican government and have them come pick them up and protect them from persecution. How in the world can we determine if someone deep in Mexico has had a run-in with a drug cartel?”
Sessions explained to fill-in host Cliff Sims of Yellowhammer News that oftentimes those awaiting some sort of hearing pertaining to entering the country undocumented will disappear.
“Many of them are released pending a hearing and then they just disappear into the country,” he added. “In effect, we’ve brought them into the country and released them. It’s just mindless and is just an example of abusing the law, in my opinion.”
The junior Alabama Republican senator said that policy was just one of the problems with our overall immigration policy and some simple adjustments would go a long way. (RELATED: Jeff Sessions issues challenge to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg)
“This is just the mindlessness of how we’re handling immigration policy in America today,” he added. “And there are people that don’t want that to end. There are large numbers of people in favor of the illegal immigration industry and for some reason it seems the administration won’t stand up and end this, which they can do. This is not impossible. In fact, we’re closer than a lot of people realize at ending the lawlessness at the border. If we were to step up our enforcement at the workplace, we’d be surprised at how much progress we could make.”