Big Win! Supreme Court Won’t Hear Asylum-Seeking Central Americans’ Appeal

The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal made by a group of unlawful Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Honduran women and children who sought to overturn a lower court’s decision to remove them expeditiously. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last August that non-citizens do not have a Constitutional right to due process if they are denied asylum.

Justices reject aliens’ credible fear claim.

The lower court was not convinced that the illegal aliens’ credible fear claim was valid, rejected it, and placed the aliens in expedited removal proceedings. Originally arrested in Texas in 2015, they were relocated to a Pennsylvania detention center where some remain, while others have been granted release under supervision.

Enforcement advocates are heartened at the judges’ skepticism regarding credible fear, key words that during the Obama administration meant near-automatic asylum. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, by 2015 the number of foreign nationals who arrived at ports of entry to file asylum applications was ten times higher than the 2009 level. Not coincidentally. President Obama’s 2009 executive action granted parole to prospective asylees instead of detaining them – as the law requires – while their cases are reviewed. Once paroled, the aliens disappeared into the general population, and became low priorities for deportation.

A 2014 House Judiciary Committee hearing found that about 70 percent of asylum applications are fraudulent, little surprise because credible fear allegations are hearsay – no witnesses, no corroboration.

Not only is the Supreme Court’s rejection encouraging, the steep decline in illegal border crossings is also a long-awaited development. Since December, parents and unaccompanied minors’ attempts to illegally enter has dropped 90 percent.