MIGRANT CARAVAN INTO U.S.
Some say they need protection, others not convinced
are refugees,” Cameron said. “These are people who really are facing real problems and we have to let them through.” Cameron said the U.S. has to give migrants the opportunity to file for asylum and that shutting down sections of the border, as President Trump proposed, is illegal. Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies with the Center for Immigration Studies, disagrees, saying that the migrants aren’t in “immediate danger.” “What is very clear about this group is that they are not refugees ... they are bent on getting into the U.S,” said Vaughan. She said the reception at the U.S. border will be “tough.” “If we don’t nip this in the bud then more caravans will form and it will keep happening,” Vaughan said. She said those entering the country on “flimsy asylum claims” will be a burden on communities, and that “stretching” the country’s asylum policy to accommodate migrants is compromising the immigration system. Michelle Mittelstadt, spokeswoman for the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., pointed to the need for quick action. “We believe in the need for and have articulated a set of commonsense reforms to the U.S. asylum system that would allow for a faster but still fair adjudication of asylum claims, to grant protection to those who are deserving of it and to remove more quickly those who do not meet the protection standards,” Mittelstadt said in a statement. According to the Department of Homeland Security, migrants seeking to qualify for asylum must be “unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” The United States admitted 84,989 refugees in 2016, according to the department’s most recent report, the majority hailing from Africa and Asia.