Getty Sen. Marco Rubio
America should always be a nation that offers asylum to those fleeing oppression or tyranny
But asylum isn’t a right, it’s generosity
It’s wrong for those seeking generosity to complain it’s taking too long & indefensible for any of them to protest by throwing rocks & bottles
Social media users were getting stirred up by a tweet from Florida Senator Marco Rubio on Monday morning. The senator and one-time presidential hopeful wrote,
“America should always be a nation that offers asylum to those fleeing oppression or tyranny. But asylum isn’t a right, it’s generosity. It’s wrong for those seeking generosity to complain it’s taking too long & indefensible for any of them to protest by throwing rocks & bottles.”
Rubio was apparently responding to the chaos at the San Ysidro border crossing on Sunday afternoon. On Sunday, hundreds of people from the Caravan of Migrants broke past a group of Mexican police officers and tried to get through to the San Diego border. The would-be migrants said that they had been living in “intolerable” conditions in a camp set up for them near the border. Reporters on the scene said that conditions were, in fact, filthy and that the river itself stank of sewage. You can see footage from the scene at the border here.
The migrants tried to storm the border and were turned back by Mexican federal police and US border agents. The US agents fired tear gas into the crowd and quickly ordered the border to be shut down.
After Rubio’s Tweet Many Pointed Out Seeking Asylum Is, In Fact, a Right
Asylum laws are complex, and there’s a lot of disagreement over what America’s obligations are and how the existing laws should be enforced. There is a lot of debate, for example, over whether asylum seekers need to be actually in the United States before they can seek asylum. But there is a general consensus that the United States does have a legal obligation to at least allow people to seek asylum.
Others pointed out that Rubio’s own parents were economic immigrants who left Cuba because they were seeking a better life in the US. Rubio’s parents left Cuba a few years before the Cuban Revolution brought Castro to power, so they didn’t benefit from the US government’s special policies towards those fleeing the Castro regime. Instead, the Rubios arrived in the US in 1956, as migrants likely inspired by economic, rather than political motivations.