Last week represented the most forceful attack yet by Donald Trump on the piece of the American creed that says we receive and protect the injured and suffering from around the world: a presidential memo directed the Department of Homeland Security to impose onerous fees on asylum-seekers and haphazardly speed up the adjudication process, while new Department of Justice rules aim to force asylum seekers into detention, ineligible for bond, while their cases are being heard.
The new regulations also grant more power to border patrol agents to determine whether asylum seekers have a "credible fear of persecution" _ a determination usually made by customs agents.
In sum, the administration would make asylum all but unobtainable, even for refugees with credible claims of being targeted in their home countries. To put it plainly, this is inhumane.
We do not claim the system for receiving and adjudicating migrants with asylum claims works swimmingly. Criteria can be sharpened. There aren't nearly enough judges to review claims. It is indisputable that some asylum seekers game the system to get into the country. We cannot have open borders.
But in seeking to slam the golden gate in the face of an unknown number of cheaters, Trump would lock out thousands of people just like the millions who over the generations have come to America fleeing real dangers. He would tell the world that America, which is supposed to be the world's leading moral voice, has no humanitarian responsibility to help the persecuted.
What does it profit a nation to gain the ability to shut people out and lose its own soul?
