Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is Interviewed about Asylum-Seeker Changes.
BASH: A new Justice Department ruling could result in thousands of asylum seekers being held indefinitely by immigration authorities. In a major reversal of previous DOJ policy, Attorney General Bill Barr now says that asylum seekers apprehended along the southern border are no longer eligible to be released on bond while their cases are being processed. The new decision comes amid a broader crackdown on asylum claims as part of the Trump administration's efforts to deter would-be migrants. I want to bring in the senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, who is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Senator, thank you so much for joining me today. I know you're working on legislation, and I want to get to that in a moment. But first I just want to ask about this order. Do you think that it's going to help the crisis at the border?</s>SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Hello, Dana. Well, first of all, I want to be able to read it and really understand exactly what the attorney general is saying. But the news report says thousands. You've seen my chart. Just since 2012, we had -- it's approaching now 900,000 unaccompanied children and members of family units. I doubt this order will apply it those. But 900,000 of those individuals have been -- you know, came to this country illegally. They were apprehended. They were processed. And they've been dispersed all over America. And I was just down at the border in El Paso. I was talking to ICE ERO (ph), asking, have we kept track, do we know where any of these people are? And the basic answer is, no, we really don't know where they are. So this is a crisis. We have a completely unsecured border. We are basically being used by the human traffickers in their multi -- their hundred million dollar enterprise here and we're helping them out.</s>BASH: Sure. And I have seen your chart. And it's very in depth. One that might be more digestible for our viewers, and I want to show them right now, is just about the asylum applications because, you're right, it has spiked in a dramatic way. 2012 started at 44,500. Now at least in FY 2018, and that was the last fiscal year, 161,000, and it is still spiking. And then that's not even factoring in the fact, as you mentioned, that a lot of them are unaccompanied minors who are being preyed upon by these -- by these human traffickers. Having said all that, America's system of justice is -- is set up in a very specific way. And given that, should the American government be detaining people and not allowing them to go out on bail?</s>JOHNSON: Well, again, so this year, just in six months, 240,000 unaccompanied children, but now primarily people coming in as family units, are exploiting our laws and being basically shoved into -- or allowed to go into America. And it's completely out of control. So the way to solve this problem, in the end, once adjudicated, only about 15 percent have a valid asylum claim. So what we need to do is we need to have a more rapid and more accurate initial determination on asylum claim while we have people in custody for a few days. You know, until this really spiked, it took about eight days to come to that initial determination. Now it's about 40 to 45. So we have to provide the resources. We have to have the facilities to maintain people in custody because if we don't detain people, we don't remove them. Only about 7 percent of non-detained individuals are actually removed, even though 85 percent don't have their asylum claim granted. So this process is being completely exploited. And people need to understand, I was just down at the border, they turn themselves in.</s>BASH: Right.