Sessions Gets It Right

COTTonLINE hasn’t always been charitable to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We’ve expressed frustration with Sessions’ failure to tell Trump a priori that he’d have to recuse himself on the issue of contacts with Russia. And perhaps with his inability therefore to get DOJ to pony up documents Congress needs to understand Spygate.

That said, when he does something of which we approve, it behooves us to note it specifically. CBS News reports Sessions has announced a less flexible approach to deciding which asylum seekers are eligible for entry. He said:

Generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum.

The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim.

This is a good decision, it will bar most applicants from Central America. Failures at self-government are not an excuse to come here seeking succor. Whether from El Salvador, Guatamala, Nicaragua or Honduras, that is their country and they should stay there and make it work. Parenthetically, the same principle applies to Mexico.