Senator Hawley criticizes the Biden Administration for granting ‘De Facto Amnesty’ to undocumented immigrants

United States Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) tore into the Biden administration over its decision to cancel the asylum proceedings for more than 350,000 migrants, a move that the Republican Senator called “de facto amnesty.”

Hawley’s letter comes in the wake of reports revealing that over 350,000 migrants who applied for asylum have had their cases quietly canceled since 2022, allowing them to remain in the United States indefinitely. Those who’ve had their cases canceled are no longer tracked to immigration authorities and are not subject to deportation.

“I write with alarm that your Department once again appears to be circumventing its duty to enforce immigration laws,” Hawley wrote in his letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), condemning the organization for “granting de facto amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.”

“These migrants are then no longer required to check in with authorities and can pursue other avenues to obtain legal status and remain in the country,” the Senator went on to explain. “Let’s be clear: granting mass amnesty to illegal migrants contradicts any Biden Administration claim that it is now somehow getting ‘tough’ on the border. You must immediately reverse course and put an end to your covert mass amnesty program.”

“In other words, you have created a mass de facto amnesty program that shields migrants from deportation,” Hawley went on to add, also saying that the move “poses grave threats to the safety and security of the American people.”

Hawley posed a number of questions to the DHS, asking “what, if anything, is your Department doing to track the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have had their asylum cases closed without a merits decision?” as well as “how many migrants who have had their asylum cases closed have then committed crimes in the United States?”

“The closed cases pertain to migrants who did not have a criminal record, but ICE officers have reported to news outlets an increase in cases of migrants committing crimes after their asylum cases have been closed,” Hawley stated, pointing to recent violent crimes allegedly committed by illegal immigrants like the murder of Laken Riley and the shooting of two New York City Police officers.

The Senator also asked how many migrants who’ve had their asylum cases closed have gone on to apply for visas, temporary protected status, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

The vast majority of those who’ve applied for asylum, 77 percent, have been allowed to remain in the United States under the Biden administration. Meanwhile, the current asylum backlog is more than 3.5 million.

The Biden administration has presided over an unprecedented border crisis, with authorities recording over 9.5 million nationwide encounters and 1.7 million estimated illegal immigrant gotaways during his term. The foreign-born population residing in the U.S. has also reached a record high of 51.6 million people under Biden, with the massive increase being driven primarily by mass illegal immigration.

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