“Harsh” penalties? Why? Nobody is opposing a vetting process. I hear conservatives bitching about the volume of immigration, versus the amount of personnel required to process them. Cry me a river. Not my problem. Shouldn’t be asylum seekers’ problem either. If Trump wants to be tough on the borders, he needs to come up with the funding for it to work right, not just start throwing people in camps, or turning them away. If funding is an issue, and the immigration issue is SO vital to national security, then he shouldn’t have done his tax cut for the wealthy. Or increased military spending, or started a trade war with THE WHOLE PLANET.
I know how to increase tax revenue. Put a hurry on getting these immigrants vetted, and get them into the system. The faster we get them legalized, the faster we will benefit from their being part of the team.
A lot of very simple fixes available. But the GOP/conservatives have to decide between greed, and national security(keeping brown people out.)