This is a crisis caused by irresponsible and bad policymaking. Specifically, it is being caused by an anti-Trump psychosis, on top of decades of legal activism by a Left hell-bent on eradicating American sovereignty.

Under international norms and U.S. law, the bar for asylum is high. Asylum status is not for those simply seeking a better life or greener pastures. According to U.S. law, refugees are people who cannot reasonably return to their country due to “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

An “asylum-seeker” is what we call a refugee who arrives at a border crossing seeking entry.

Plenty of migrants along the southern border, such as ethnic Mayans fleeing Guatemala’s legacy of genocide or Honduran women fleeing systemic femicide, may qualify for asylum. Under Trump’s diplomatic agreements, asylum-seekers were not simply turned away. But they were required to apply for asylum in the first safe country they reached. If you’re going north to flee Guatemala’s government, that doesn’t give you permission to enter the U.S.