It always amazes me how when I read articles about people claiming asylum.  Most of their stories are almost identical: gangs threatened them in their home country!  If they didn't join the gangs, they would be killed!  They had no choice but to flee their country!  They all have nearly identical stories, as if they were coached, all repeating the same words they hoped would get them a free ticket into America.

The other story we commonly hear is of women seeking asylum, claiming their husbands beat them.  What do abusive husbands have to do with seeking asylum in another country?  Why can't they move to a different part of their own country, or if they came through a third country like Mexico, why would they not also be safe there?

Even more puzzling is asylum law itself.  I thought there were no grounds to claim asylum based on crime in one's home country.

Here's what the U.S. government lists as grounds for seeking asylum:

Every year people come to the United States seeking protection because they have suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution due to:

• Race
• Religion
• Nationality
• Membership in a particular social group
• Political opinion

Nowhere does it mention crime.  But the Obama administration rewrote the law on its own, deciding that asylum meant whatever it decided.

[A] precedent was set during the Obama administration that allowed more women to claim credible fears of domestic abuse[.] ... [T]he Obama administration created "powerful incentives" for people to "come here illegally and claim a fear of return."

Asylum seekers can make claims that they suffered persecution related to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or their particular social group, broadly considered to include people who share a common characteristic that endangers them and whose governments will not protect them.  Legal scholars have debated its definition, and some groups who have qualified include relatives of dissidents, L.G.B.T.Q. people, victims of domestic violence and people fleeing violent gangs.

Well, that's come to an end now.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday made it all but impossible for asylum seekers to gain entry into the United States by citing fears of domestic abuse or gang violence, in a ruling that could have a broad effect on the flow of migrants from Central America.

Relatively few asylum seekers are granted permanent entry into the United States.  In 2016, for every applicant who succeeded, more than 10 others also sought asylum, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.  But the process can take months or years, and tens of thousands of people live freely in the United States while their cases wend through the courts.

And that's why they claim asylum.  So they can disappear once they are released.

The number of people who told homeland security officials that they had a credible fear of persecution jumped to 94,000 in 2016 from 5,000 in 2009.

Attorney General Sessions will face criticism for changing the enforcement of asylum applications back to the way the law was originally written.  When Obama perverted the law to his own ends, liberals applauded, not worried about niceties like rule of law.  When Sessions enforces the law as actually written, he is labeled as insensitive to asylum-seekers.  Nowhere does the feelings, or interests, or security of the American citizen ever enter the discussion.

It's high time that asylum, which was meant for people being persecuted by the likes of the Soviet Union and Mao's China, is no longer abused by people who want free medical care, free schooling for their children, and jobs that belong to Americans.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.