Texas Candidates Mull Decriminalizing ‘Improper Entry’ Border Crossings

on July 22, 2018 in El Paso, Texas.
EL PASO, TX - JULY 23: People walk across the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry bridge which connects the U.S. and Mexico on July 23, 2018 in El Paso, Texas. A court-ordered July 26th deadline is approaching for the U.S.... EL PASO, TX - JULY 23: People walk across the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry bridge which connects the U.S. and Mexico on July 23, 2018 in El Paso, Texas. A court-ordered July 26th deadline is approaching for the U.S. government to reunite as many as 2,551 migrant children ages 5 to 17 that had been separated from their families after they crossed into the U.S. from Mexico along the border. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Some Democratic candidates in Texas have called for a re-examination of the law criminalizing unauthorized border crossings, HuffPost reported Thursday.

While it is a civil infraction to simply be unlawfully present in the United States, the act of first-time improper entry (illegal border crossing) is a criminal misdemeanor.

This has formed the basis of the Trump administration’s family separation policy: When parents traveling with children were transferred to criminal detention to await federal trial for the crime of improper entry — including, notably, those parents seeking asylum in the United States — while their children, unable to be held in criminal detention, were taken into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“It’s time to reform and look at things,” Lupe Valdez, a former customs agent and Dallas County sheriff, and now the Democratic nominee to become Texas’ governor, said, per HuffPost. “The majority of people are not coming in to do harm.”

“I don’t think coming in here undocumented should be a criminal issue,” Valdez added.

“The United States has built a system on incarcerating migrants,” former El Paso County Judge and current congressional candidate Veronica Escobar said. “We really have to evaluate the way that we’ve criminalized migration.”

“These asylum-seekers — penniless, at wit’s end, after surviving three weeks on the road, very often with their children — then attempt to do what I think any human would do, which is to request asylum in between the ports of entry,” Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), currently running to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), said.

“We should not criminalize that,” he said. 

Read HuffPost’s report here.

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  1. Not sure where I stand on this, maybe going too far in the other extreme. But hey at least Trump is feeding them.

    https://www.npr.org/2018/08/22/640849555/hungary-intentionally-denying-food-to-asylum-seekers-watchdog-groups-say

    Maybe we’d better hold all calls between PM Viktor Orban and Trump. I think Trump has already implemented one of Orban’s moves against asylum seekers.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/02/03/582800740/hungary-reduces-number-of-asylum-seekers-it-will-admit-to-2-per-day

  2. The long-predicted impacts of global warming are here.

  3. Orbán is doing what he can to stop the invasion of Hungary. Many things wrong with the crap NPR is feeding. For one simple thing, Hungary is not the main access to Europe. That’s a confusion of geography and recent events. Hungary simply does not want to have the EU dictate who they will accept.

    Globalist elite crap is fueling the ascendancy of populists like Orbán.

    Wait until the Swedish election next month. Sweden Democrats will take over, and a ton of illegals invaders will be dumped into the Baltic sea.

  4. I have no idea why these folks in TX think that open-borders policies will help in their electability. There’s no way that Dem will be elected Gov anyway, so he can propose whatever lunacy he wishes.

  5. Well, Hungarians certainly know about invading Europe…

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