Senior National Security Fellow Todd Bensman with the Center for Immigration Studies warned there is “mass immigration asylum fraud” taking place in the U.S.
Bensman, who has interviewed thousands of migrants over the years, explained on Thursday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy how migrants, specifically from Venezuela and Haiti, often live in other more stable countries – including Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador – for years before making their way to the United States to work and live a prosperous life.
“They fled Venezuela because it was collapsing, had good lives in Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, happy businesses, prosperous, safe, no persecution for asylum claims or anything like that. But then the border opened, they heard about it through the cell phone selfie network and they came in huge numbers,” Bensman explained. “They’re one of the largest nationalities crossing the border, all of them claiming some form or another of humanitarian protection, but they’ll tell you that we were coming for jobs. And so often they’ll toss their I.D. cards before they cross because those I.D. cards show that they were living safely ensconced in a third safe country.”
Bensman went on to explain that migrants who claim they are coming straight from collapsing countries like Venezuela or Haiti but are actually coming from other countries often dispose of their I.D. cards just before crossing into the U.S. and claiming asylum.
The disposal of I.D. cards on the embankments just outside the U.S.-Mexico border, Bensman said, is “evidence of asylum fraud.”
Bensman said the political narrative that a majority of migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, and other failing countries are coming to the U.S. to escape such horrible conditions is “largely untrue.”
“That is probably one of the most impactful, politically impactful false narratives in the interior of the country today. We’re seeing this constantly trotted out during this campaign season. The problem is that it’s largely untrue. There is mass Immigration, asylum fraud underway here,” Bensman said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Illegal Immigrants” by USBP Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino.
