The migrant crisis is mostly a problem of the United States making, namely that there are not enough public resources to adequately address the crisis. Asylum seekers, the only legitimate migrants to cross the border without authorization, aren’t being provided with secure, decent housing while they await a decision from an immigration judge, while those decisions are not being handed down quickly enough.

First off, migrants and asylum seekers should be in the care and custody of the federal government. They should not be sleeping on the streets or asking for housing in public shelters for the homeless. The federal government should operate detention centers for asylum seekers, similar to other minimum security prisons the federal government operates. No cells or handcuffs, but also not free to roam the streets or do as they please. It should have the atmosphere of a college, but with a fence or other barrier to keep asylum seekers and the public safe while they await processing. Asylum seekers should get three healthy meals a day, a safe and warm bed to sleep, common areas, and a library to learn the law. Medical care should be provided. There should be a place they can meet with immigration attorneys and family already in the United States. Safe and comfortable, but at the same time not some place people would aspire to unless they are legitimately fleeing prosecution in their own country. This would take an enormous burden off state and local governments.

Second, asylum seekers should be processed promptly and without unnecessary delay — a speedy but fair proceeding. A first step could be after initial processing, where the asylum seeker explains his or her case to an immigration officer, the data including fingerprints is uploaded to a computer and checked against public and private records of the federal government. The migrant’s case, typed up, would be fed into the database, and a score of the likelihood to secure asylum status based on machine learning of past immigration judgments would be generated. The score would be constantly updated based on new rulings of immigration judgments, with a higher priority given to more recent judgments. The asylum seeker within 72 hours would be provided with the score of their likelihood to succeed. If the asylum seeker so chooses after getting their score to voluntarily leave the United States, they could do so then or any other time during the process.

Computer scoring can be wrong, machine learning can reflect existing biases in the system. Asylum seekers would retain their option to appear in front of immigration judge, with those granted a higher score getting higher priority in front of the judge, so they can be moved forward to moving out into community sooner rather then later. But no migrant should be required to wait more then 90 days for a judgement, if the federal government fails to brings to the asylum seeker in front of an immigration judge for a ruling within that timely period, the migrant would automatically win the right to stay with a green card. This puts the pressure on the federal government to act in a timely fashion on all cases, lest undesirable persons with a problematic background be let in on grounds of default. The pressure would be on Congress to provide adequate funding for immigration judges, while also on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to act in a timely fashion.

These steps would go a long way to fixing a broken system. Maybe not popular — immigration advocates might not like the idea of securing asylum seekers in essentially minimum security prisons or the idea of relying on computer models which can reflect existing biases in the system. Anti-immigration advocates might argue that the timeliness requirements could let criminals, terrorists, and other bad people in should the government fail to do its job and make immigration decisions in a timely fashion. But the federal government should be forced to do it’s job and protect the public by acting quickly. Anti-immigration advocates could argue that providing asylum seekers with decent housing, even if it’s like a minimum security prison, is essentially coddling migrants, though I would push back and argue that’s really not the case.