Virginia Republicans are continuing the dumb politics from their non-border state over the southern border.
Attorney General Jason Miyares has joined attorneys general from 17 states in a suit against the Biden administration over its Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule.
The rule, which went into effect on May 11, restricts the eligibility of migrants to seek and obtain asylum, rendering the vast majority of those seeking protection disqualified from asylum if they reach the southern border by land or water and can’t overcome a “presumption of asylum ineligibility.”
The Biden administration is already under attack from immigration advocacy groups, with the ACLU claiming in a legal filing that argued that the new rules are an attempt to “resuscitate and combine the illegal features of the two previous asylum bans” that were struck down by federal judges earlier.
Miyares and his fellow Republican AGs, from the far right on the immigration issue, claim that the new rule redefines previously illegal border crossings as “lawful pathways.”
The exceptions “unlawfully circumvent US immigration law” and would allow “aliens not entitled to admission” into the US, the AGs allege in their complain.
“The real purpose of the Circumvention Rule is to incentivize” immigrants to use the border patrol app “to make bogus asylum claims, all while avoiding the bad optics of crowds of illegal aliens,” the complaint states.
“This plan proposed by the Biden administration does little to deter illegal immigration, and, instead, provides the Cartels with a makeshift manual on how to circumvent and exploit our immigration regulations,” Miyares said. “Encouraging more border crossings without congressional approval will merely worsen the chaos and tragedy taking place at the border, and promote further fentanyl and human trafficking that is tearing apart Virginia’s communities.”