Expert: False Border Claims "Ludicrous" and "Unfounded"

Philip Marcelo, Associated Press, May 19, 2023

"CLAIM: Video clip shows U.S. soldier opening a gate on a border fence and allowing migrants to enter the country illegally, in violation of U.S. code.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Federal officials say the migrants had already crossed the border and were already on U.S. soil when they passed through the gated fence. An immigration expert also rejected claims the soldier’s actions violated federal regulations dealing with undocumented immigrants.

... Major Jeremy Idleman, a spokesperson for the Missouri National Guard, ... declined to comment on claims that the soldiers’ actions violated the U.S. codes cited in the post, but Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University in New York, dismissed the notion as “ludicrous.” ... Yale-Loehr also noted the migrants were taken in for processing -- as is the agency’s protocol -- and weren’t simply released into the country. “The video doesn’t show any effort to harbor or hide undocumented migrants,” he wrote in an email. “Claims that federal officials are simply letting migrants enter the US illegally are unfounded.”