Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced Wednesday that four out of five asylum seekers who come to the United States’ southwest border to do not meet the necessary criteria to enter the county.
Nielsen was on Fox News with Laura Ingraham to discuss immigration specifically at the southern border.
.@SecNielsen: “If you enter our country illegally, we will refer you for prosecution, we will prosecute you.” @ingrahamangle pic.twitter.com/3ZAPW9LgGg
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 16, 2018
Nielsen said on the show:
“The way the system works right now the threshold under law is so low that about 80 percent pass that initial interview, but only 20 percent are granted asylum by a judge, which tells us that 80 percent of that is either just a flat-out fraud or somebody who thinks they can come here because they want a job here. That’s not asylum. Or ‘I want to reunify with my family.’ That’s not asylum. ‘I just want to come to the United States’ — not asylum. We have legal ways to do that, but it’s not through asylum,” Nielsen said.
She also spoke about Congress’s inability to pass any legislation related to immigration.
.@SecNielsen: “How sad is it that the Congress of the United States can’t pass a law to simply increase penalties for criminals who have been deported, who come back?” @ingrahamangle pic.twitter.com/WlfbyywiuR
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 16, 2018
Back in May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he had instructed the Executive Office of Immigration Review to prosecute all illegal entrants to the United States. Previously, they would only punish the most serious of offenders. Sessions said he wanted to send a message to those seeking asylum that the government would punish those who lied.