Mazie Hirono: “Reserving the right to object, my colleague thinks that this bill will reform our broken asylum system. As the other…”

“Reserving the right to object, my colleague thinks that this bill will reform our broken asylum system. As the other naturalized citizen in this body, I object. We actually passed comprehensive immigration reform out of the Senate in 2013, and I was one of the Senators who worked on that bipartisan bill. But when the bill got to the House, it didn't pass. So we are here once again. And more recently, there was a bipartisan immigration bill that was about to be brought to the Senate, and everything was set to go until the current President decided that he would much rather have this issue continue to not be addressed. So there you go. We can all agree that our immigration and asylum systems need reforms, but I have serious concerns about this legislation. My colleague has stated that this bill is intended to prevent those who come to the United States in between ports of entry from applying for asylum. But as it is drafted, this bill eliminates the section of the law that allows people present in the United States to apply for asylum. This means that it would prevent anyone, even those who have lawful status, from applying inside the United States. Instead, they would have to travel to a port of entry. This bill would also require that anyone, including families, seeking asylum at a port of entry be arrested and held in custody for the entire time their request is pending. And it could take quite a long time, using taxpayer money, to detain them.…”