| >Many of them say their goal is to settle in the US despite warnings by US officials that anyone found entering the country illegally will face arrest, prosecution and deportation. You're conflating the word "goal" with the idea of "malicious intention". Let me give an example: I have a goal to travel to space but I'm not building my own unlicensed rockets with unlicensed materials to do it. This doesn't implicitly mean that I mean or intend to break the law, whatsoever. Secondarily, as another post already pointed out, asylum can be granted for people who enter illegally, as codified in the US Code[0]: Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title. If you're going to argue the merits of violating the law as reasons to deny them asylum, (and deport them) then you should, at the very least, be aware of the law's allowance of such action, which they're leveraging to seek asylum, yeah? In other words, your argument is specious because it entirely discredits the "law of the land", as it were. Not mention, of course, that you fail delineate betwixt "goal" and "intent". [0] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158 |