The asylum issue is interesting. I recently listened to a podcast that described a crackdown (under Obama) on "Asylum mills" in New York where lawyers falsified stories for asylum claims for thousands of immigrants.
Immigration officials are moving against these immigrants in a sweeping review that federal authorities say is related to a 2012 investigation into asylum mills. During that probe, federal prosecutors in New York rounded up 30 immigration lawyers, paralegals and interpreters who had helped immigrants fraudulently obtain asylum in Manhattan's Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens. The case was dubbed Operation Fiction Writer.
The federal government says the people convicted during Operation Fiction Writer had helped more than 3,500 immigrants, most of them Chinese, win asylum. Authorities accused them of dumping boilerplate language in stories of persecution, coaching clients to memorize and recite fictitious details to asylum officers, and fabricating documents to buttress the fake asylum claims.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018 ... ls-clients
It's not a surprise that a system that was set up for compassion has been abused, but after seeing the problems that can accompany asylum claims, I think a lot of people have a simplistic view of the process. It's about as deep as Michael Scott's understanding of bankruptcy. I just imagine people walking up to the border and yelling "I declare... ASYLUM!" and thinking that's it.
