Senators suggest bipartisan border solution to speed deportations

A bipartisan group of senators offered a new solution to the border crisis Thursday that could clear the way for approvals for those with legitimate asylum cases, while speeding deportations for the vast majority of illegal immigrant families who don’t have real claims. Families without a valid claim to asylum could be ousted within 15 days, the senators said, calling their plan Operation Safe Return. The group is led by Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona Democrat, and was joined by two other Democrats and five other Republicans. The crux of their plan is to have Border Patrol agents do an initial screening of migrant families to see why they came. If it’s clear they’re standard illegal immigrants, coming for family or jobs, they will be quickly deported. If they take the first steps to make an asylum claim, they will get a hearing with an asylum officer within nine days, and get a quick hearing before an immigration judge. “Within approximately 15 days after being encountered, the Department of Homeland Security should remove family units whose negative credible fear determinations are affirmed by the immigration judge,” the senators said in a letter to President Trump. They said the government already has the power to take those steps under existing law and policy. WTimes