Menendez worries Biden could become ‘asylum denier-in-chief’ in weighing family detention policy

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on Sunday expressed concerns that President Biden could become known as an “asylum denier-in-chief” after reports last week that indicated the administration is weighing re-starting a controversial family detention policy. 

“If the administration does go down this path, I am afraid that the president will become the asylum denier-in-chief,” Menendez said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 

Menendez said “the best part” of the Biden administration’s immigration policy so far “is that they ended family detention, which proved to be a failure under both the Obama and Trump administrations as a way to deter individuals from coming.”

The White House is reportedly floating a reversal to restart the family detention policy, in which migrant families who cross the border illegally are held in detention facilities, shocking many lawmakers on the left. 

Menendez noted that many migrants flocking to the U.S. border are fleeing dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. 

“If my situation is I am in a country where staying means where I will most certainly die, see my daughter raped or my son into a gang, I’m going to flee. Well, we need to understand that and deal with it,” the senator said.

“People fleeing those dictatorships, when the admin opened up a legal pathway for those fleeing, it dramatically saw the reduction. It’s just an example of what you can do in a way that both is good for the border and preserves our nation as a nation that preserves asylum,” Menendez said.