White House Insists Border Is “Secure”
A campaign by Republican governors to highlight the magnitude of the southern border crisis, and the Biden Administration’s failure to deal with it, is electrifying public awareness of the mounting humanitarian disaster and its grave implications for national security.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey have been shipping busloads of illegal migrants to Washington, New York and Chicago. So far, the governors have sent nearly 10,000 migrants to Washington, including four busloads recently dropped off at Vice President Kamala Harris’ home, Fox News reports.
Harris, who President Biden put in charge of tackling the border crisis shortly after assuming office in Jan. 2021, sparked a backlash last month after she twice declared the U.S. southern border is “secure.”
She made this announcement while Customs and Border Patrol estimate an average of 55,000 illegal migrants a month are smuggling through huge holes in the border wall, and fleeing into the country’s interior, undetected.
While Vice President Harris insists the border is “secure,” Border Patrol has recorded the arrests of more than 2 two million illegal immigrants in a single year, quadruple the annual average during the Trump administration, reports CSMonitor.
Two weeks ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis followed through on his promise to transport illegal immigrants to progressive states, sending two chartered flights to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. The city is known as a luxurious venue for rich progressives, including former President Obama.
“States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals whom they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration, through their support for the Biden Administration’s open border policies,” the governor’s office said.
DeSantis proposed Delaware or Martha’s Vineyard as a destination for such migrants, but his office explained that they could also be sent “to other ‘progressive’ states whose governors endorse blatant violations of federal immigration law.”
“It is not the responsibility of Floridians to subsidize aliens to reside in our state unlawfully; we did not consent to Biden’s open-borders agenda,” DeSantis said at the time.
The transporting of immigrants to cities up north by GOP governors has drawn outrage from officials in these states. Critics decry the relocations as “publicity stunts,” and complain of being overwhelmed as they try to find accommodations for the migrants who arrive without warning.
Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington D.C. declared a public emergency in response to the unannounced drop-offs, and announced a plan to create an Office of Migrant Services with an initial budget of $10 million.
“We’re not a border town,” Mayor Bowser complained to reporters on Sept. 15, after migrants were dropped off at Vice President Kamala Harris’ home. “We don’t have an infrastructure to handle this type of, and level of, immigration to our city.”
Hypocrisy of Media Blackout
During an interview with the Washington Examiner, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said the governors’ policies “are exposing the hypocrisy of Democrats and the media on their stances on immigration policy.”
“If the arrival of 10,000 migrants is straining Washington’s support services,” said Cruz. “just imagine having hundreds of thousands arrive. The Arizona city of Yuma, population 96,000, has seen 284,000 migrants arrive since last September – a 200 percent increase over the previous year.
He said Democratic-led cities like Washington, New York and Chicago are suddenly becoming alarmed about migrants arriving in their communities after downplaying talk of a border crisis.
“Things are utterly dysfunctional [at the border] and part of the reason for it is the press won’t cover what’s happening there,” noted Sen. Cruz. “The media blackout is facilitating the Biden White House policy of lying on this issue.”
The Texas senator pointed out that by August, the Border Patrol had apprehended 1651 criminal migrants among those crossing illegally. 78 of them were on the terrorist watch-list—five times more than during the previous fiscal year.
“This is a crisis that, on the merits, should dominate the news each and every day because it continues to get worse,” Cruz added. “The Biden Department of Homeland Security is preparing for up to 400,000 illegal immigrants. It’s a humanitarian disaster. And there is no plan, no strategy in place to deal with it.”
In an appearance on Fox News, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick explained the purpose behind the policy of busing immigrants to Democratic strongholds further north.
“The message we’re sending is the border is a disaster and the lawlessness has to stop,” Patrick said. “This is campaign season and I’ve been visiting dozens of cites in rural Texas; the message I’ve been getting from all these cities is “Keep the buses going! We need concrete action from the government. The chaos on the border cannot continue.”
“We in Texas and other border states have to absorb all the drugs and other trafficking that come in,” Lt. Gov. Patrick continued. “Criminals and terrorists are crossing the border every day with these [waves of immigrants]. A border city like Del Rio (Texas) that has 37,000 people has now jumped to 400,000. That would be like New York city with its 8 million being flooded with 80 million practically overnight!”
Lt. Gov. Patrick went on to note that “the wealthy elitists in these cities have been saying, ‘Let them come in, we are sanctuary cities.’ But as soon as the immigrants actually come off the bus and into their communities, the liberals change their tune, saying, ‘No, no, you can’t stay here.’ They find a quick way to get rid of them.”
[The migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard were quickly moved to a military base near Cape Cod.]
Incentivizing The Cartels
The Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border is being framed by administration officials as “humanitarianism” and “compassion” for the immigrants. But what it actually does is far from humane, critics say; the policy incentivizes cartels and human traffickers.
Evidence of the escalating criminal activity enabled by White House border policies came in a federal indictment from South Texas that was unsealed in mid-September, according to a Department of Justice press release.
The indictment revealed that federal officials had dismantled a multimillion-dollar smuggling ring that had been cramming unauthorized immigrants into trucks or wooden crates to bring them across the border.
Some people were hidden under locked hard-bed covers of pick-up trucks, others in empty water tanker trucks, and in empty wooden crates strapped to trailers. Upon discovery, most of the migrants were dehydrated and struggling to breathe.
Arrests of the suspected members of the smuggling ring took place in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Interrogation of the suspects revealed that Mexican criminal drug and human trafficking cartels charge up to $8,000 per person helped to enter the United States. For those who can’t pay it all up front, the cartels have created a new system of slavery.
The immigrants, including young boys and girls, must go to work to pay back their smugglers, who employ threats of torture, kidnapping or death for noncompliance.
The immigrants wear cartel-manufactured ID bracelets that are color-coded to signify how many thousands they must pay their ‘coyotes’ [smugglers]. Many are blackmailed or forced into a life of crime in order to repay their smugglers once they are across the border.
Painting a gruesome picture of the horrors he has seen at the southern border, including images of children and elderly people dying in Texas after being smuggled across in inhumane conditions, Sen. Cruz laid the blame at the feet of President Biden and Democrats who have “handed the agenda over to the radical extreme left.”
“We have this situation where we have open borders, where there’s an international perception—an accurate one—that one can fly to our Southern border and walk right on in,” said Sen John Cornyn, R.-TX.
“I visited the border in 2021 and I was just struck by the human dimension to all of this. Young children filing out of cars, escorted by coyotes, walking a couple of hundred meters from Mexico into gaps in the border wall.
“These gangs have learned that if you overwhelm the Border Patrol with unaccompanied children or just sheer numbers, that will then open lanes into the United States with which to smuggle illegal drugs or traffic children,” the senator said. “The greatest beneficiary of the border crisis are the criminal organizations that charge exorbitant fees to smuggle people into the United States, and are getting richer by the day.”
Toxic Fruits of Biden Policy
Cruz said halting the construction of border wall; operating the catch-and-release policy; and pulling out of the “Remain in Mexico” agreement have led to the present humanitarian disaster at the border.
“Remain in Mexico” was an agreement the Trump administration reached with the Mexican government to prevent migrants from flooding across the Mexican border, until their asylum applications with their claims of persecution could be evaluated.
“We went from the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years to the highest rate of illegal immigration in 62 years, and it happened overnight,” Cruz said. “And Biden could fix this problem tomorrow … reverse those three decisions.”
The Texas senator credited the Obama administration for its record on deportation, saying the former president “actually enforced the law.” In a 2005 speech, Obama said, “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States, undocumented, unchecked, circumventing the line of people waiting patiently and lawfully to become citizens of this country.”
Obama also pointed out in that speech that while Americans are generous and welcoming, those who employ people living in the country illegally “disrespect the rule of the law.”
Apart from millions of illegal migrants who have melted into the country, 100,000 Americans have died from fentanyl poisoning this year because drug smuggling across the border has reached wild proportions. The consequences will be felt for generations, analysts say.
“What we are seeing with immigration has never happened in the history of the country,” Sen. Cruz said. “The reason South Texas is apparently turning red is because they are seeing this chaos. You cannot see it and defend it.”
Biden Says Communist Regimes Driving Immigration
President Biden has defended his management of the US-Mexico border crisis by claiming that record-breaking illegal border crossings are due to people “fleeing communism.” Yet most apprehended migrants have not cited this justification, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) records show, according to CS Monitor.
Biden invoked “communism” despite the fact that just 35 percent of migrants in August said they were fleeing the authoritarian socialist governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the Monitor said.
When a reporter at a White House press conference asked why “the border is more overwhelmed under your watch,” Biden responded, “What’s on my watch now is Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua…And the ability to send them back to those states is not rational.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also attributed the migrant influx to “communism”- rather than Biden’s more relaxed border policies.
“These people are fleeing communism,” Jean-Pierre said. “Failing authoritarian regimes in Venezuela as well as Nicaragua and Cuba are causing a new migration challenge across the western hemisphere. So, what we’re seeing is a new pattern.”
Data for 2022 however, cited by CS Monitor, show that while migrants from the socialist regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are more numerous, they still make up only part of the surge at the border.
In the past 11 months, about 154,000 Venezuelans, 195,000 Cubans and 146,000 Nicaraguans were encountered at the southwest border, the article attested. “These numbers make up less than 23% of the 2.15 million migrants so far in fiscal 2022, according to CBP data,” reported the Monitor.
Every State Is A Border State
“Because of President Biden’s failed policies on the southern border, the reality is that every state is now a border state,” remarked Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa at a press conference with other Republican senators on the border crisis.
“The sweep of illegals and all of the issues facing Texas are now confronting every other state in our union. So, whether it is human trafficking coming over the border, drug or gun trafficking, of which the majority are coming up interstate 35 through Texas from Mexico, it is affecting all of us,” Sen Ernst said.
The White House could easily reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy as the federal court has mandated,” explained Sen. Ernst. “But they’re dragging their feet instead of heeding the court. This congress has put forward multiple options to be able to actually deal with illegal immigration. But for whatever reason, the [administration] is choosing not to enforce the law and to ignore federal courts.”
The Narco Slave Trade At U.S.-Mexico Border
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently released a graphic video highlighting the brutality of what he calls the “Narco Slave Trade” at the U.S.-Mexico border. Cruz said the video captures what the mainstream media has been derelict in reporting.
The video begins with Cruz and border officials tending to a group of migrants who crossed the border late in the night. He stresses that the vast majority of migrants, especially children, are being economically exploited by the drug cartels bringing them into the United States.
“These children cross the border in debt to vicious cartels, to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars. The teenage boys work for the gangs in every city in America, and the teenage girls experience a nightmare worse than that, with far too many of them human trafficked into slavery,” Cruz says in the video.
“The Biden-Harris administration is enabling this plague, the worst plague of slavery in America since the Civil War.”
“This is not compassionate. This is not humane. This is barbaric,” Cruz adds as the footage pans graphic photos of migrants who have died attempting to cross the border.
Cruz said he wants Americans “to see firsthand the tragedies, the little girls and little boys who are being abused by the traffickers, the drugs that are flowing over, the bodies that are abandoned, people left to die in the desert heat.”
“The way to fix it is reverse the political decisions Biden and Harris made when they took office. Complete the wall. End catch-and-release. Reinstate Remain-in-Mexico. They could do it; all America knows this. It is only partisan politics that prevents them from doing so.”
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White House Endgame
Other than repeating the inanity that “the border is secure,” the Biden White House “has articulated no coherent immigration or border security policy,” a Fox News op-ed pointed out. “As a result, one can only judge the administration by its words and deeds.”
The article went on to argue that the administration’s “endgame” must be to overwhelm America with millions of illegal immigrants, and by holding out a promise to finally secure the border, force Republicans to the table to agree to grant them citizenship.
Such a strategy would look at every unlawful immigrant not as a law-breaker but a potential ally—a future Democrat voter who can help win elections.
Of course, no one on the Biden team will admit to this goal. Americans are left to figure out the president’s policy objectives on their own, the Fox News op-ed said.
In striking contrast, former President Donald Trump’s border policy was crystal clear: secure the border and limit entry into the United States to those with legitimate claims under the nation’s laws. As a result, the number of illegal immigrants in the country, statistics show, markedly declined.
Candidate Biden: ‘Migrants Should Surge to The Border’
The article quoted candidate Biden famously declaring during a Democratic presidential debate that migrants should “surge to the border; all those people who are seeking asylum, they deserve to be heard.”
Not surprisingly, migrants from all over the world have heeded his call.
Some may remember that in the final presidential debate with President Donald Trump, Joe Biden announced that he would not only revoke all Trump’s immigration policies, but would also create a path to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented people living in the U.S. in the first 100 days of his term.
With a narrowly divided Congress, the Biden plan to grant citizenship has proven nearly impossible. As a result, the administration has tried to get around federal immigration law in other ways.
One approach was to officially change a key function of Homeland Security, which is to secure the nation’s borders. Accordingly, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas told a Fox News anchor in May that “deterring illegal immigrants is no longer the administration’s border policy.”
Instead, the new goal, Mayorkas admitted, “is to make sure that we have safe, orderly and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system [i.e. become vote-casting citizens].”
This message has been heard loud and clear, as each month brings a new record for catch-and-release arrests at the border. The Biden administration’s weak response guarantees the cartels operational control of the Mexican border, where conditions are anything but “safe, orderly and legal.”
“Migrant deaths on the border routinely hit new grisly highs, and are seriously undercounted,” the op-ed said. “And with the immigrants pouring across the border come rivers of deadly drugs,” as border agents are diverted to processing asylum-claimants rather than busting drugs-dealers.
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The governors’ busing policy, carrying immigrants and the border crisis literally to the living rooms of wealthy progressives, has removed the blinders from many Americans. Long shielded by a media that has done its best to keep the lid on an explosive story, people may finally be starting to grasp the scope of the humanitarian tragedy at the border, as well as the real threats to national security of the government’s current border policies.
