Senator Kyrsten Sinema Joins the Operation Safe Return Program

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Senator Kyrsten Sinema is now joining a group of government officials who are behind a pilot program called Operation Safe Return.

The National Review says that this program "would allow the deportation of migrants within 15 days if their asylum claims are not credible...".

Sinema along with 9 others wrote this:

"We write to urge you to use authorities in use as of June 30, 2019, to implement Operation Safe Return, a pilot program to rapidly, accurately, and fairly determine those families who have crossed the southern border that clearly do not have a valid legal claim and safely return them to their home countries. Through this program we expect that we can meet our commitments to humanitarian protections while ensuring proper efficiency, timeliness, order, and fairness in the credible fear screening process".

Sinema got together with senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin to lead an effort to help ease the rising border crisis.

One of the things Sinema proposed for the program would be to deport families who haven't claimed "credible fear" as a reason for seeking asylum.

She said, "This pilot program would apply to families who aren't claiming 'credible fear,' which of course is the first threshold in seeking asylum. If someone says 'I left my country because I can't make a living,' [or] 'it's hard to take care of my family' - that's what we call an economic migrant".

She continued by saying, "I just felt those weren't the right answers. We wanted to solve the problem. We wanted to protect the asylum process for valid applicants...and we want to respect the Flores decision".

The Flores decision says that migrants who are minors cannot be held in federal custody for over 20 days.

Currently, migrants and asylum seekers can wait for years in some cases and many don't show up to their hearing. The Operation Safe Return program seeks to avoid this by expediting hearings and instantly deporting anyone who doesn't meet the "credible fear" standard.


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