The asylum system in America is broken. But can it be fixed?

But it will likely be years before a judge decides whether any of those people – some who came here on their own and some bused here recently from New York City – really do qualify for asylum, a legal shelter that the United States provides to those who would face grave danger back home. And every time another asylum-seeker from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba or some other troubled nation crosses into the United States, that backlog of asylum cases grows, as does the legion of undocumented migrants now living in limbo in cities across the country.

That being the case, even some of the most fervent supporters of legal immigration say America faces an asylum crisis that’s overwhelming cities from Brownsville to Buffalo.

“I hate to say this as a progressive person, but the federal government has the responsibility to protect our borders,” said Dr. Myron Glick, founder and CEO of Jericho Road Community Health Center, which runs the Vive Shelter for asylum-seekers. “And if they realize that millions of people are crossing that border every year, then they can’t ignore that. They have to say: ‘All right, we know there’s going to be a downstream problem, whether it’s in El Paso, Texas, or in New York.’”

For now, Glick said, the federal government needs to provide localities with the resources to deal with the migrant influx – but he added that the government can’t stop there. He favors comprehensive immigration reform, including reform of the asylum program that now finds itself overwhelmed with many people who won’t qualify for asylum.

“The brokenness of the whole system, from the federal level on down, is just causing a lot of suffering,” he said.

The asylum crisis was rooted…