Border crisis sparks calls for change in immigration policy

(NewsNation Now) — The surge of migrants at the southern U.S. border will only be resolved “when we close the loophole in immigration law,” former Border Patrol chief Ronald Vitiello said during a Wednesday appearance on “The Donlon Report.”

The last surge of migrants, in 2019, was resolved when migrants “were forced to wait in Mexico to have their immigration hearing.” Before that, there was a surge in 2014, which the Obama administration resolved by building detention centers where immigrants could be held while awaiting their day in court before an immigration judge.

Now, because the word has gone out that such programs no longer exist, Vitiello said, “We’re seeing a crisis on our southwest border … we’re being overrun.”

“You have to have [potential immigrants] in custody or waiting in Mexico to have their immigration hearing. If you do that, you will deter others from taking that dangerous trip.”

“When I led the men and women of the Border Patrol … we worked a lot with Congress to ask for the closing of these loopholes … to give the men and women at the Border Patrol, DHS and ICE, the tools that they need to help control that border. If you give them those tools, we could have a lot less chaos.”

Also, Wednesday on “The Donlon Report,” Florida Congressional candidate Sheila Cherfilus McCormick urged the Biden administration to give Haitian refugees at the border a chance to apply for immigrant status.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said McCormick, the daughter of Haitian immigrants. “We see pictures of people with babies trying to cross the water. We see agents with whips grabbing people, It’s inhumane.

“We’re just asking for the Biden administration to apply the law,” by allowing the Haitian refugees to “have a chance in seeking asylum, allow them to have a hearing,” rather than automatically putting them on planes back to Haiti.

It’s natural for there to be a surge in immigrants from Haiti, she said, given that the nation has recently suffered gang warfare, a presidential assassination and a major earthquake.

“The Biden administration has to stand up for all the Haitian-Americans who voted for the president to make his promises to us true — that he will treat us equally and allow us to have a chance at asylum.”