The crisis on the southern border rages on. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas continues to gaslight lawmakers and the media that the border is closed and Team Biden has the situation under control. A report released by the AP now claims that the Biden administration is being pressured by open borders advocates to bring back illegal immigrants deported during the Trump administration. There is also movement from the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to drop questions about past gang membership during the green card application process.

What could go wrong? More than 935,000 illegal aliens were deported by the Trump administration. It is unclear exactly how many of them will be extended an invitation to come back into the United States, presumably at American taxpayer expense. According to the AP, corporate-backed National Immigrant Justice Center is pressuring Biden to sign an executive order to create an office inside DHS that allows deported illegal aliens to submit requests to return to the U.S. Does anyone think there is not already enough bureaucracy involved in the federal government, including the immigration process? This action would leave American taxpayers on the hook for a reversal in deportations and also creates an additional layer of red tape to the process.

Joe Biden has not publicly spoken about readmitting those who have been deported yet. Immigration reform is a hot-button issue on both sides of the aisle and Biden has only commented publicly with broad statements and few specifics. Immigrant rights groups have come together to lobby Mayorkas on their proposals.

The National Immigrant Justice Center says Congress doesn’t need to act on their proposal and that creation of a centralized process to review applications could be done through executive action because it is based on existing laws.

The plan asks the government to take into account factors like people who were eligible for legal status and had applied before being deported or those who have compelling circumstances.

The proposal has been shared with White House staff, the group said. It plans to invite Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to discuss the proposal and include a letter signed by 75 immigrants’ rights organizations supporting the plan.

A White House spokesperson referred questions about the proposal to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond.

Open borders advocates point to the Biden administration’s attempts to reunite families in the U.S. There are also demands that deported veterans be given a second chance.

“In the process of doing that, hopefully the various agencies involved recognize that this is something that can be done, that we have processes in place, such as humanitarian parole, to bring people back,” said Alina Das, co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University School of Law.

And while efforts to bring back deported veterans have persisted for years, advocates have started a new campaign with that goal, which Biden promised to carry out during his campaign.
In February, three California lawmakers reintroduced a bill to allow certain deported veterans to return.

“If someone deserves a second chance, those are our veterans,” Democratic state Rep. Mark Takano said recently.

Missing from all this is any input from Kamala Harris. Joe Biden appointed her czar of the southern border crisis (he called her the “most qualified person for the job”) in March and yet she remains silent. She hasn’t even visited the southern border to see a first-hand account of the crisis. She has been shamed by critics into making a trip to Guatemala and Mexico this month to talk about financial incentives and improving the situation in the Northern Triangle countries, paid for by American taxpayers. That’s one part of a border security solution but the immediate crisis on the border will not be affected by those long-term goals.

The fact remains that Biden is hellbent to destroy what the Trump administration put in place to handle border security. He continues down this wrong-headed path and offers no new solutions, he simply wants to be able to say he reversed actions taken by the bad Orange Man. Kamala doesn’t even have the nerve to show her face at a border facility or meet with law enforcement personnel on the ground who are tasked with handling the flood of illegal migrants on a daily basis. Her office is in a panic that Biden’s move to delegate the crisis to Kamala will not bode well for her politically when she runs for president again. That is why they now tell the press that she isn’t in charge of the crisis, she is only working on family reunifications and policy with world leaders. Neither Biden or Harris are up to the task of securing the southern border.

Another idea in the works is for DHS to eliminate two questions that the Trump administration attempted to add to green card applications. The Trump administration tried to add two questions to determine past gang-related activity of green card applicants. It did so because the questions add to a more complete picture of those seeking a green card. The Trump administration argued that it was relevant information. Unfortunately, the administration didn’t get it done before Biden took office.

During the Trump administration, USCIS sought to revise the Form I-485 to ensure that applicants provide sufficient, relevant information for the adjudicator’s discretionary analysis. In “Part 8. General Eligibility and Inadmissibility Grounds”, USCIS sought to add the following two questions related to gang membership.

In compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Form I-485 revision went through a 60-day comment period followed by a subsequent 30-day comment period. Unfortunately, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget, which controls executive branch information collections, failed to approve the revised version of the form before President Biden’s inauguration.

A USCIS source tells me that the agency’s political leadership intends to scrap these questions before the Form I-485 is resubmitted to OIRA for approval. This is remarkable for several reasons. First, the Biden political appointees inaccurately call these “politically motivated questions by previous leadership” despite career staff involved in the 2020 form revision project pointing out that the Department of Justice had specifically requested that such information be included in the form. Undeterred, the USCIS political team is reportedly pushing ahead despite being wrong about the origin of these questions. Second, scrapping the gang-related questions deprives adjudicators of a full record to make adjustment of status decisions. The Biden administration appears unconcerned that the absence of gang information in the I-485 will allow bad actors to obtain green cards that would have been denied if only the adjudicator had the information.

It is no surprise that the Biden administration is gaslighting this plan. They are willing to allow in migrants will a history of gang membership in order to own Trump, apparently. Ignorance isn’t bliss when it comes to national security and securing the southern border. The questions about past or current gang activity were requested by DOJ and its career staffers. It’s Team Biden who is making the issue a political one. They have promised “significant changes” to the immigration process. It looks like this is part of what they are planning.