If they were zombies from “The Walking Dead,” Sunday’s standoff at the border would have consisted of 59 minutes of aimless conversation by the good guys followed by one rote, underwhelming minute of action.

Sorry, I had to. Gotta scratch that TWD itch when I can.

I find myself surprised at the fact that I’m surprised that amnesty fans like Geraldo are disingenuously treating the use of tear gas as a minor atrocity. Tear gas and pepper spray are practically S.O.P. at the border, never mind among American police departments during riots. Geraldo and his fellow travelers know it. Why would I expect them to operate in good faith?

The same tear-gas agent that the Trump administration is taking heat for deploying against a border mob this weekend is actually used fairly frequently — including more than once a month during the later years of President Barack Obama’s administration, according to Homeland Security data.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, or CS, since 2010, and deployed it 26 times in fiscal 2012 and 27 times in 2013. The use dropped after that, but was still deployed three times in 2016, Mr. Obama’s final full year in office…

Border authorities also use another agent, pepper spray, frequently — including a decade-high record of 151 instances in 2013, also under Mr. Obama. Pepper spray, officially known as Pava Capsaicin, was used 43 times in fiscal year 2018, according to the CBP numbers.

You’re going to watch the clip below and think, “What would he have the Border Patrol do to prevent illegal entry by hundreds of people rushing the border simultaneously?” Why, nothing. He’d let them in, seemingly in as many numbers as they can muster. If you missed this post from last month, the last time he emoted on Fox about the fact that America enforces its borders against non-criminals, read it now. The liberal position on immigration “enforcement” is increasingly clear and increasingly radical, notes Mark Krikorian: The solution to problems with controlling the border is simply not to control it.

The ruse these illegal immigrants have been using to get released is an asylum claim. Even though the vast majority of the claims are clearly without merit (and half of those released in order to pursue their applications never bother to follow through), the Left, both in and out of government, has encouraged their filing, and the prolongation of cases.

Having incentivized the flow of Central American asylum seekers, the Democrats then opposed all the steps needed to prevent asylum from being used as a strategy for illegal immigration — such as amending the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, overturning the Flores Settlement, raising the bar for a “credible fear” claim (the first hurdle in the asylum process), and funding more detention beds…

If you will an end, you must will the means to that end. The Democrats have demonstrated that there are no means to achieve the goal of controlled immigration that they are willing to support — not border control to keep unauthorized people from barging in, and not deportation of those who manage to get past the notional borders.

Note the term Geraldo uses in the clip: “Economic refugees.” Asylum claims ideally are granted to people in fear for their lives due to political or religious persecution back home. The refuge they’re seeking isn’t from high unemployment, it’s from being murdered. He’s shifting the goalposts before your eyes to do exactly what Krikorian accuses amnesty fans of doing, lowering the bar for asylum to the point where practically any citizen of a foreign country that’s economically depressed would need to be admitted under the rubric of asylum. The entire population of Venezuela, for starters, would logically be admissible as “economic refugees.” Illegal immigration writ large is being shoehorned by open-borders shills into the category of “asylum” in the name of finding a statutory peg by which legal status might be granted. Geraldo’s not being subtle about this.

Remember too that he’s on record as being willing to trade funding for the wall in exchange for amnesty for DREAMers. Ask yourself: If he believes all non-criminal foreigners should be admitted at ports of entry as “economic refugees” under asylum laws, whom would the wall deter? What fool would attempt to cross the border illegally instead of surrendering to the Border Patrol, demanding asylum, and then counting on a shortage of DHS detention facilities to ensure their release into the U.S. while their asylum claim is pending?

Although I suppose if Geraldo was writing the immigration laws, there’d be no need for any asylum claims to be pending. Do you have a criminal background in your home country? No? Is the job market back home bad? Yes? Congratulations, you’re an “economic refugee.” Here’s your green card. You could handle that in a matter of hours at the border itself.

In lieu of an exit question, read Patterico on our media using children who were recklessly put in harm’s way by their parents on Sunday as propaganda for the open-borders cause. Some children count in the immigration debate, and some children don’t.