By: Simon Hankinson, The Daily Signal
In the run-up to November’s election, Vice President Kamala Harris is attempting to rewrite history and absolve herself of her administration’s policy of facilitating mass illegal migration into the U.S. through reckless releases of aliens caught at the border and bogus alien “parole” programs.
Against much existing evidence, a new ad her campaign is running claims Harris is a border hawk, touting her past prosecutions of gang members and recent support of a twice-defeated Senate border bill that actually would have codified into law many of the Biden-Harris administration’s open-border policies.
Though in 2017, Harris said, “An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal,” her campaign staff recently told Fox News, “the vice president’s position is the same as the administration’s—unauthorized border crossings are illegal.”
In an Aug. 29 interview on CNN, Dana Bash asked Harris about her change of mind. The vice president said, “I believe there should be consequence” for entering the U.S. illegally, because “we have laws.”
Indeed, we do. Our laws say aliens entering the U.S. illegally “shall be detained” pending their immigration court hearings. But under the Biden-Harris administration, they are caught and almost all are then immediately released, often with federally funded tickets to wherever in this country they want to go.
So, what “consequence” did Harris have in mind? Bash didn’t follow up, but if the past three years are any guide, Harris does not seriously contemplate any more enforcement than the feckless norm of the last three years.
Meanwhile, amid all the smoke and mirrors of a hot electoral campaign, the Biden-Harris mass parole programs continue to bring in around 70,000 inadmissible aliens a month.
But in early August, the Department of Homeland Security paused one program that allows in 30,000 inadmissible aliens a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. What was the reason it paused it?
It wasn’t because it was against the law and flouted the clear intent of Congress to create only a very limited parole power for the executive branch, as Art Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies explains.
It wasn’t because DHS has no way to vet the applicants for criminal histories in these four countries, which are either too disorganized to have records or too hostile to share them with us.
And it wasn’t because many recipients of this parole have drained the public purse as recipients of taxpayer-funded food, clothing, and shelter; increased urban disorder; and committed crimes, including murder.
No, it paused the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela parole program because the blatant fraud permeating it had temporarily become an embarrassment. With political appointees at the top of every federal agency, evidence of dysfunction is usually kept under wraps, but a recent U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services report obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform exposed to lawmakers and the public how bad things were.
Entities within the U.S. applied to be “financial supporters” of the paroled migrants, using fake Social Security numbers or those of dead people. According to U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, a “financial supporter” can be any person or entity “who agrees to provide financial support to the beneficiary [the paroled alien] while they are in the United States for the duration of the parole authorization period.”
Multiple supporter applications came from the same address, email, or phone number, or used the same exact wording. Nearly 600 financial supporters applied using one Florida warehouse as an address. There were 3,200 mega-supporters who together applied to bring in a total of 100,000 applicants, or over 30 apiece. In short, the sponsorship application process was a joke, though that didn’t stop DHS from approving close to half a million financial supporters and the aliens they vouched for.
By the end of August, DHS was ready to start the parole program up again. During the short shutdown, it made some tweaks “to better validate the identity and qualifications of the supporter(s) and perform additional background checks and security vetting.” In a notice announcing an “emergency revision” of the online sponsorship application, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also said it “will require submission of biometrics by supporters,” presumably fingerprints, and a $30 fee.
All this tells you that, first, Citizenship and Immigration Services was doing little to validate “supporters” before, and second, it knew its existing background security checks were worthless.
Even with a few rushed improvements, the parole sponsorship concept is laughable. First, according to the agency’s guidance, “there is no requirement regarding the financial supporter’s immigration status in the United States.” This means that a paroled alien, one claiming asylum, or one fighting deportation could be a sponsor.
Second, “If the petitioner is unable to find a financial supporter who alone has sufficient means to support the beneficiary in the United States, the petitioner may indicate more than one financial supporter”—just keep adding until you win.
Third, “a beneficiary may also demonstrate that they are financially self-sufficient”—meaning that the Biden administration will allow an inadmissible alien to sponsor himself to enter and live here, whatever our laws say. There’s hardly a way to lose this game.
DHS was embarrassed by the fraud report into making some token changes to the parole program, which is just one single lane in its open-borders superhighway. DHS can revise the financial supporter form all it wants, but the fraud will persist—for two reasons.
First, many people seeking to enter the United States who can’t get a visa will say whatever it takes unless the consequences for fraud are real—I’ve seen this firsthand, over a quarter century, on four continents.
Second, there are no consequences for a fraudulent U.S.-based supporter. Financial supporters can lie all they want to DHS without fear of being prosecuted. DHS told NBC News that “serial filers who … appear to be exploiting or abusing the process will be non-confirmed.” In other words, they will not be allowed to be financial supporters. That’s it. Only those supporters who shake down aliens for money “will be referred to law enforcement for potential prosecution.” (And translate that “potential” as “will never happen.”)
As the Immigration Reform Law Institute’s Matt O’Brien told the Daily Caller, the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela parole program “relies on a ‘sponsor’ relationship that is impossible to verify and imposes no enforceable obligations on sponsor or beneficiary.”
If a financial supporter is “confirmed” but fails to support his alien parolee, the government won’t do a thing. Witness Corey Alvarez, a Haitian accused of raping a disabled girl in a Boston-area Comfort Inn earlier this year. He was paroled into the country based on a sponsor in New Jersey who wasn’t even housing him, let alone taking responsibility for his conduct.
The Biden-Harris administration is resuming the program not because it has solved the underlying fraud liability, but because at this point, the administration just doesn’t care.
To paraphrase Civil War Adm. David Farragut, it’s full speed ahead and “damn the torpedoes.” The program pause was a minor inconvenience that won’t stop the administration’s effort to release, parole, and facilitate as many inadmissible aliens as possible to enter the United States for as long as it can.
