Hillary’s Fake Deportation Crisis

Responding to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s call for “due process” before deporting Central American children, an immigration expert noted Tuesday that legal protections already exist.

Clinton issued her call Monday, saying in a statement that U.S. immigration enforcement “should be humane and conducted in accordance with due process.”

On “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Center for Immigration Studies President Mark Krikorian said he does not know what Clinton is talking about. He pointed out that only a small number of the Central Americans who have been sent home, and all of them enjoyed the full protections of the American justice system.

“They had all of their ability to have a court date and all the rest of it,” he said. “So, I think, really, what she’s saying is illegal immigrants need to have as many hearings as it takes to be able to stay. Indeed, the motto of the immigration lawyers is, ‘It ain’t over until the alien wins.’ And I think Hillary is operating on that same assumption.”

Krikorian touched on two other developing immigration stories — the abuse of the F-1 student visa program and a wave of Cubans en route to the United States.

He said there are no limits in the number of student visas that can be issued to foreign students. The current annual total is about a million, he said.

“What we’re finding is (in) place after place, there’s fraud,” he said. “There are phony universities that are basically selling the ability to move to the United States. People are coming here.

“They’re pretending to go to university. And they’re just coming here to work and they just disappear into thin air. For immigration, it’s just not a priority to look for these people.”

Meanwhile, Cubans flown from Costa Rica to El Salvador boarded buses and are about to reach the U.S. border. Under a Cold War era law, Cubans have special privileges when it comes to immigration.

“The point is, they can make their way to the Rio Grande, and as soon as they get across the Rio Grande, they say, ‘Hi, I’m Cuban, where’s my green card?’” Krikorian said. “And what we need to do is change the law.”

Dan Cadman, a fellow at Kirkorian’s think tank, in an interview with LifeZette, said Costa Rican authorities hatched the Cuban airlift plan when Nicaragua blocked entry of some 8,000 Cubans to whom Costa Rica had grand visas. A land route through Central America has become increasingly popular for Cubans since America adopted a “wet foot, dry foot” policy in the 1990s. Since then, Cubans intercepted in the Florida Straights have been returned to their home country.

The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1962 allows U.S. immigration authorities to let Cubans into the country and grant permanent residency after a year. The law was designed to help Cubans during the Cold War. But with President Obama normalizing relations with the Communist government, critics contend that special treatment in immigration is a relic.

But Cadman said even under current law, U.S. immigration authorities do not have to allow Cubans into the country. If they violate a determination that they do not meet the prerequisites for asylum and cross the border anyway, he said, they can be treated as any other illegal immigrant.

“They (immigration authorities) have all the authority they need under the law,” he said.