Rosenberg: So that is why they discard their IDs?
Bensman: Yes because their ID shows that they were in a "Safe Third Country" which makes them ineligible for asylum. But if they throw the IDs away and lie a little bit about where they've been and their itinerary, the chances are much better that they'll be let in. If you're authentically drowning, you just grab anything that's floating. What these people are doing is saying, I'm gonna just disregard these 15 life rafts and wait for the big shiny one over there. That's why I have a whole chapter titled "insane asylum"--asylum is the root cause of this, along with these new policies.
Rosenberg: Can you speak a little more about asylum?
Bensman: During Title 42 [a code to prevent COVID-19 spread] people claiming asylum had to remain in Mexico. Nobody was interested in claiming asylum if they had to wait in Mexico. On the other hand, asylum claims in the U.S. are so backlogged they can take seven years. Many just blow off their claim and disappear-- judges overwhelmingly decline the claims because they are not political but rather economic migrants. So the whole game of asylum is just the very beginning of the procedure where you claim it and they let you go.
Rosenberg: So "fleeing gang violence," as the main news outlets so often characterize the journeys, is incorrect?
Bensman: Gang violence is not an eligible asylum claim; it must be political persecution by the government. Secondly, anybody who's claiming, oh, I left my Central American country because of gang violence and now lives on the south side of Chicago will find their gang violence is nothing compared to Chicago's gang violence. Are they planning to flee now to another country because of it?
Rosenberg: Your write in "Overrun" that over 160 different countries are using the U.S.' Southern border to gain entry.
Bensman: I've met emigrants from just about every country on the continent of Africa--from countries I had to look up. There's no country that isn't represented down there on that border. People from Muslim countries praying five times a day; people from Kyrgyzstan. When I ask these people on the trail, why did you not come ten years ago, they're say, "oh, the border was opened."
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