“It depends on demographic, the court, but we see too many cases where people are not showing up,” he said, telling Graham that DHS recently conducted a pilot program with family units.
“Out of those 7,000 cases, 90 received final orders of removal in absentia, 90 percent,” he said.
“90 percent did not show up?” Graham asked.
“Correct, that is a recent sample from families crossing the border,” McAleenan clarified.
McAleenan’s testimony also painted a grim portrait of a border crisis that shows no signs of easing, with Border Patrol overwhelmed and underfunded. The secretary described authorities as hamstrung by laws that limit how long they can keep migrants in custody.
“Currently due to a single district court order, we cannot obtain effective immigration enforcement results for the families arriving at our border — they cannot be held for longer than 21 days and do not receive rulings from immigration courts for years,”

You say people utilize religion to be “jackasses”, but do you realize you’re doing exactly that? You’re just using religion to justify a policy that is harmful to everyone, both the American society at large, since the people coming is unvetted, bad individuals get to cross the border. But also for the immigrants too, from women getting assaulted by coyotes, to human trafficking that happens due to the illegality of the crossing.

Why are you doing it? While I can’t know because I’m not you, I used to think that way, so it’s probably because it makes you feel good, because you think you’re being a good person. At least it was that way in my case. But feeling good about yourself and doing good are two very different things, so start doing good even if it makes you feel bad.

While obeying laws is clearly a biblical value, a deeper look helps make some inferences to understanding the issue of how Jesus addresses obeying the law. When the woman was caught in adultery, Jesus counseled looking inward before passing judgement. In that case the legal punishment for breaking the law was avoided in lieu of compassion. When addressing the Sabbath, He clearly advises against the letter of the law and placed a higher value on serving humanity.

One problem, today, is that we are not enforcing the asylum laws as written and are not allowing people to make their claim. We have removed judges and are creating a backlog. That’s not compassionate when we block the clearly defined process and deny those in real danger. There are more migrants at the border and a fraction being allowed through the legal channels in place. “Why would we do that?” is a good question… or even, “how can we orderly process more people to ascertain an asylum claim?”. “What would I do if my route to safety was blocked for my children? Would I give up my children to danger to follow a law (or because a law wasn’t being followed by the US government?” All good questions when trying to have empathy.

Additionally, a quick google search will show that almost 100% of asylum seekers show up for court- an asylum seeker facing real danger is not going to risk any chance of being saved by having their case voided forever by not showing up. That’s pretty clear and documented by even the current administrations records.

I think your last question shouldn’t be why immigrants are being jackasses (mean, callous, and stubborn), but why someone would risk family separation and incarceration to escape where they are? I think the many documented instances recently of deportees that have been killed upon their return gives an answer.