Gaming the System

It appears that Uncle ken has been reading from different news sources than I have.  I got most of my information about this asylum thing from my Windows 10 news app, but those articles are long gone by now.  I'll have to do some more research over the weekend, and this time I'll post the links.

The first time I remember hearing about the asylum law was a couple years ago when Obama was still president.  There was a plane load of unaccompanied minors from Guatemala that showed up at the border asking for asylum.  I seem to remember that they had been coached by their parents to cross the border illegally, immediately turn themselves in to immigration authorities, and then ask for asylum.  Some people were saying that they should just be sent back home, but the law said they had to have a hearing first.  They were allowed to stay in the country, supposedly under adult supervision, while waiting for their hearings, but I don't remember hearing about how those hearings turned out.  More recently, I heard about the current controversy about separating the children from the parents.  I don't think these are the same children, because there was a big deal made about those Guatemala kids being sent here by their parents, not brought here by their parents.

During the Cold War days, there was a law that allowed people who had either defected or escaped from Communist countries to apply for political asylum.  If they were accepted, it didn't detract from the annual immigration quota, it was above and beyond.  I never heard the term "asylum" mentioned without the "political" part in those days.  Nobody says the "political" part nowadays, so I wonder if this is even the same law.  If it is indeed the same law, it sounds to me like the illegals are using it to game the system.  That Sessions guy recently said that the law was never intended to cover situations like this.  If it is the same law, then I tend to agree with him.  If it's a different law, then neither Sessions nor I know what we are talking about, but that's never stopped either of us before.