Former Obama ICE director says border is in crisis, asylum process being 'abused'

April 8, 2023

John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE Director during the Obama administration, said Thursday on NewsNation Live that the border is in crisis and the asylum process is being abused with the blessing of the Biden administration.

“Certainly, there’s a crisis at the border,” Sandweg said, adding that illegal border crossers know an asylum claim “gets them at least three, four, five years in the United States” because the system is so backlogged.

“[W]e have an asylum system, we have asylum laws that have been on the books for over 50 years in this country. What we have not done is adequately fund the asylum system," he claimed.

Sandweg further said that most of the migrants are recruited by human smuggling rings that keep the system overloaded.

"The smugglers go around and take advantage of that and exploit them by recruiting them in their home countries and bringing them to the border. But what they realize and what’s changed…is they realize that we have not funded the asylum system, that if you get to this country and you make a claim of asylum, it will be years before we can process the claim," they said.

"And obviously, once people realize that more are going to come and the problem becomes worse,” he concluded.