Don’t care what albaby says on the subject, we had a long go around at TMF and his knowledge on the subject was zilch.

I don't recall having much of a discussion over at TMF, so you might be thinking of someone else. But it's been a few years.

But asylees are legally allowed to remain in the United States pending the disposition of their asylum claims. They cannot be deported, and their presence in the U.S. is not illegal during that time. That's why the shift in the demographics of those crossing the border has caused so many problems, dating back to the last pre-pandemic year of the Trump Administration. And why Trump couldn't do anything about it. Under the immigration statutes, no matter where they entered (POE or not), and no matter what their immigration status in crossing the border, they may legally remain in the U.S. until their asylum application is finally resolved.

Because we don't have the infrastructure necessary to process the hundreds of thousands of asylum applications that have been filed every year since 2019, the number of people who are pending disposition of their applications - and thus legally present in the U.S. while that's in process - has skyrocketed. The only ways to reduce the numbers in that population are to either: i) beef up the infrastructure to take out the backlog; or ii) amend the statute to change so they could be deported without a hearing. The former is what was in the border bill just shot down by the House GOP; the latter is probably a violation of international human rights law and probably not legal under the U.S. Constitution (there are serious due process issues if you take away someone's current right to a hearing, whether they're a citizen or not).