Federal immigration officials are using a new strategy to thwart the common tactic of illegal immigrants: entering the United States and then asking for asylum, claiming they will be tortured if they return to their home country, whatever that home country is, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Federal prosecutors and the Border Patrol, echoing the new hard-line policy on immigration from President Trump and Attorney General Sessions, will arrest a person in the country illegally, and then release them, if they sign a statement affirming that they do not have a credible fear of being tortured or abused back home.
San Antonio immigration attorney Lance Curtright tells News Radio 1200 WOAI it's part of the overall effort by the Trump Adminsitration to cut down on claims of asylum.
"Its all very consistent with their strategy to deport immigrants as fast as they possibly can, and without regard for process," he said.
Curtright says legally, if a person has signed a statement affirming that they have no fear of persecution back home, it makes it a lot harder for that person to make an asylum argument later on.
"Speed now trumps process, and getting decisions right, and justice just needs to get out of the way," he said.
Border Patrol agents say, starting with the influx of 'unaccompanied minor' illegal immigrants in 2014, smugglers are advising illegals to, in many cases, turn themselves in and claim asylum, saying that they would be in danger if they were sent back home.
Asylum claims, many of them bogus, have clogged up immigration courts and have allowed people who enter the country illegally to be released 'pending a hearing in immigration court.'
Of course, most of them never appear for that hearing.
PHOTO: BORDER PATROL