GOP Accuses Attorney General Merrick Garland of Stonewalling as Courts Struggle with Migrant Surge; How Much Longer Can Biden Pretend the Border is Secure?

GOP accuses Attorney General Merrick Garland of stonewalling as courts struggle with migrant surge:

Two top Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee demanded answers from Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday over how his department has been running the immigration courts, where a massive backlog of cases has fueled the Biden administration’s “catch-and-release” approach for processing of migrants at the nation’s southern border.

Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Rep. Tom McClintock, the California Republican who chairs the panel’s immigration subcommittee, have been pursuing the data since January and say 13 separate inquiries have gone largely unanswered by the administration, even as the backlog gets worse.

They say the data they are requesting would shed light on the bottleneck and why the administration is having such a tricky time solving it.

“Since January, the committee has asked the department for basic data and information related to the nation’s immigration courts and the Biden administration’s refusal to pursue immigration cases,” said Russell Dye, a spokesman for the committee. “After the committee attempted more than a dozen times to receive this data and information, the department continues to stonewall, likely trying to hide how the administration’s failed policies have been a disaster for the nation’s immigration courts.”

The immigration courts are where illegal immigrants go to argue against deportation, often by making claims for asylum in the U.S. Migrants are arrested and issued a summons to appear later before the Executive Office of Immigration Review to look into their case.

The EOIR is part of the Justice Department and is staffed by department employees known as immigration judges.

But critics say the office has also become the black box of the current immigration crisis.

The EOIR’s backlog reached 1.979 million cases as of March, up from 1.277 million at the end of 2020, or just before President Biden took office. That increase happened even as judges have been ordered to dismiss record numbers of cases to get them off the docket. —>READ MORE HERE

How Much Longer can Biden Pretend the Border is Secure?

With several more Democratic cities and states complaining about illegal immigration and begging the White House to help, how much longer can President Joe Biden get away with his narrative that the border is secured?

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre continued peddling this talking point this week. On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre said that “we are stopping the flow at the border” in response to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s comments. Adams has been the loudest Democrat saying that the Biden administration needs to do more to address the border crisis. Jean-Pierre followed that up on Thursday by saying that Biden had done more to secure the border “than anybody else.”

Yes, the Biden administration really wants you to think that it’s the Republican Party that is fighting against securing the border. The administration also wants you to think that Biden has already secured the border, so what exactly the problem is supposed to be here isn’t exactly clear.

The reality is that Biden’s own decisions have all but opened the border for any and all arrivals, and it is Democrats who are now raising the red flags. Among the recent cries for help are those of new Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who said that “Chicago cannot go on welcoming new arrivals safely and capably without significant support and immigration policy changes.”

States are starting to cave to the pressure too. In order to appease Adams, the Biden administration wants to move illegal immigrants arriving in New York City to New Jersey. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has already objected and claimed they have no room for new illegal immigrants “in Atlantic City or frankly elsewhere in the state.” And Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has turned to the National Guard after declaring a state of emergency over the number of arrivals. —>READ MORE HERE

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