NOTE: The information here comes from by classmate, the great Allegra Love. All mistakes are my own.
But Trump either does not understand, or does not want to understand, or is deliberately leading his followers not to understand, some basics of how the system works.
There are three legal ways to be admitted to the United States.
The first is by our family unification immigration -- what opponents call chain migration. To qualify, an applicant must have a sponsor who is a nuclear family member who is a citizen or permanent legal resident of the United States and apply for a visa at a US diplomatic facility in his/her home country. Applications are processed on a first-come-first-serve basis. There is a quota for each country. This means that if the number of applicants exceeds the country's quota, there is a wait. How long a wait depends on the country. But in the case of Mexico, the time exceeds 20 years. This goes a long way toward explaining why many people are not willing to stand in line and wait their turn.
The second is skills-based, or merit based immigration. To qualify, an applicant must have a skill that cannot be met by US citizens, must have a prospective employer as sponsor, and apply for a visa at a US diplomatic facility in his/her home country. The decision whether to admit is based on how much the US needs the skills being offered. Many immigration critics want to eliminate, or at least greatly reduce, family immigration in favor of skills-based immigration. They refer to this as immigration based on the interests of the US, not the interests of the immigrants. It is fair to point out that US restrictions on family immigration are (presumably) an attempt to balance US interests and the interest of the immigrants.
The third is asylum seeking. Asylum seekers must prove they face persecution in their home countries. This has traditionally meant persecution by the state, not by private actors such as family members or armed gangs. It has traditionally meant that the applicant is singled out for individual persecution, and not simply facing a generally unsafe situation. Both these traditions are facing challenge and modification. Asylum seekers are not required to apply in the countries where they are in danger and wait for approval of their application. Asylum seekers my come to the US without prior authorization and present themselves to the authorities to request asylum. Traditionally, asylum seekers are detained when they present themselves. They then appear before a judge to present evidence that they face a credible fear of persecution if returned and are not threats to national security if released.* Traditionally in such cases asylum seekers were paroled but required to show up for future hearings. The Trump Administration is seeking to end the practice of parole and detain all asylum seekers until their application is either approved or rejected. To do so would overwhelm existing facilities.
What Trump is unable or unwilling to understand is that asylum seekers are not required to apply for admission in countries where they are not safe and wait in these unsafe conditions until their application is decided. Asylum seekers may legally enter the US without prior authorization, so long as they then present themselves to apply for asylum. Whether Trump has not had this explained to him, whether is is to ignorant to absorb the information when it is explained, whether he closes his mind to what he does not want to hear, or whether he is deliberately misleading gullible followers I do not know, although all of these seem quite plausible. My guess is also that to Trump and the people he is appealing to, the whole idea that people may legally enter this country without prior authorization seems like an intolerable affront to our sovereignty. Yet such is the law.
Another point Allegra has made is that in the Mideast or in Africa there are refugee camps. These camps are operated by the United Nations and provide for refugees until they can either return home when the danger is over or be accepted for asylum, either in the host country or in some third country. Refugee camps are not pleasant places to live, but when the alternative is home in the grip of civil war, famine, natural disaster, etc, they may be the lesser evil.
No such system exists in the Western Hemisphere. One may make the argument that such a system should exist. Certainly Central America and Venezuela are creating plenty of refugees these days. There is some evidence that Trump is putting pressure in Mexico to establish such a system to hold Central American refugees while they apply for admission to the US. I do not know, and do not pretend to have the knowledge to understand, the merits of such a policy. To make it work, though, will require international cooperation, working with the UN, and spending taxpayer money to support refugees -- all the sort of things that would be anathema to Trump and his followers. But perhaps they may decide that, compared with a massive, disorderly influx of asylum seekers, to do so is the lesser evil.
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*Some asylum seekers legitimately pose such threats. The terrorists who made the original 1993 attack on the World Trade Center were asylum seekers.
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