For decades, the asylum system in this country operated on the honor system — and wouldn't you know it, people with no honor exploited it. Now DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin is done playing nice. His department is preparing first-of-their-kind lawsuits against migrants who file fraudulent asylum claims, using a document fraud statute — 8 U.S.C. § 1324c(d) — that's been gathering dust while millions of bogus cases piled up.
Let that sink in. We finally have a DHS leader that's suing BACK. Somebody check if hell froze over.
DHS General Counsel James Percival laid it out in terms even a DC bureaucrat could understand: "For many years, millions of illegal aliens have committed fraud in our immigration system." He went further, saying that "no place is this more rampant than in immigration court" where "it is standard practice for immigration attorneys representing illegal aliens to assert that virtually every illegal alien is going to be persecuted." Every single one, apparently. What are the odds?
The numbers are staggering. The immigration court system is sitting on a backlog of more than 3.5 million cases. Under the Biden administration, roughly 50% of claimants received fast-track green cards or citizenship — despite surveys showing only a tiny percentage of migrants were actually seeking asylum for legitimate reasons. The rest? They learned the magic words, got coached by their attorneys, and walked right through the front door.
Percival made clear that ICE attorneys now have expanded authority to go after the fraudsters. "ICE has its own tools. Now, thanks to this directive, ICE attorneys have greater authority to enforce the law," he said. Tools AND authority. What a novel concept for a federal agency.
And don't think this is unprecedented territory when it comes to asylum fraud itself. Back in 2005, a Tibetan man named Tenzin Norbu was charged for running a scheme that charged $5,000 per fraudulent asylum application. He got 27 months in prison and had to forfeit $170,000. In 2018, an immigration attorney named Andreea Dumitru out of Queens was convicted for filing over 100 fraudulent asylum applications. The fraud has been happening for years — we just never had a government willing to go on offense.
The difference now is scale and intent. This isn't about catching one crooked lawyer in Queens. This is DHS as an institution saying: you lie on your asylum claim, we will find you, and we will sue you. The gravy train doesn't just stop — it backs up and runs you over.
For years, the playbook was simple: cross the border, claim persecution, get a court date three years out, disappear into a sanctuary city like Chicago, New York, Boston, or California. Rinse, repeat, and the American taxpayer picks up the tab. That playbook just got shredded, as reported by Breitbart.
Welcome to accountability. Population: you.