Authored by Jonathan Turley,
It was once said that possession is nine-tenths of the law, an acknowledgement that the possessor of property generally has the advantage in keeping it. This principle has been taken to absurd extremes in some squatter cases, where people invade homes and then demand the right to stay pending long legal challenges. Today, under both our housing and immigration laws, mere occupation often appears to be nine-tenths of our laws.
Obviously, unlawful immigrants are not the same as squatters. Some of these migrants have legitimate asylum and other claims. We have to separate those meritorious cases from the vast majority with no cognizable claims. Yet, our legal system is failing the public by allowing unlawful immigrants with no meritorious claims to game the system for years and then simply vanish into the nation.
In courtrooms across the country, the nation seems trapped in a type of Squatter Syndrome, a macro version of the housing cases. The slowness of the removal process is being used to keep millions in the country indefinitely. It may prove to be President Joe Biden’s most lasting legacy, a de facto residency by simply overwhelming the system by the sheer number of unlawful entries