Biden's Border Crisis Proves Americans Are Not His Priority
From the archive: record border numbers in early 2023, and what a Florida prosecutor saw on the ground.
The Overview
The facts, straight
First published in Washington Examiner, March 31, 2023.
Every action and inaction by President Joe Biden sends a message. Unfortunately, it’s often the wrong message, leading to disastrous consequences. His seeming disinterest in and abject failure to address the devastating southern border immigration crisis, for example, have wreaked havoc on our country and signaled to the rest of the world that we can’t be bothered to protect our own sovereignty.
This crisis began when, during his presidential campaign, Biden promoted illegal immigration by telling foreigners that “you should come” while criticizing restrictions and promising to eliminate deterrents such as the border wall. Caravans of immigrants wearing Biden T-shirts headed to our border immediately, as though they had been personally invited by him. Two years later and the caravans are still arriving. Just this month, a crowd of more than 1,000 migrants aggressively rushed an El Paso entry point to enter our country forcibly.
Biden ended his second year in office with record-high monthly southern border encounters: 251,487 immigrants. And those are just the recorded encounters. U.S. border agents report an estimated 1.2 million “gotaways,” or illegal immigrants who entirely thwart our immigration processes, since Biden took office.
Meanwhile, Biden has removed eight of the 12 surveillance blimps used to monitor parts of the border that cannot feasibly be patrolled. One can’t help but wonder how many terror watchlisters were among the 1.2 million “gotaways,” especially considering that 98 were arrested at the southern border during fiscal 2022 alone.
Biden’s indifference toward enforcing our federal immigration laws sends the message that America’s laws don’t matter. Cartels and criminals are taking full advantage, with human and drug trafficking hitting record highs. Millions of immigrants illegally enter our nation under the misguided assumption that illegal immigration is no longer a problem. They believe that if they can just get here, they will become Americans and enjoy all the rights, privileges, and opportunities this great nation has to offer. This sets them up for failure when they find that they remain illegal immigrants without those rights, privileges, and opportunities afforded to American citizens.
The effects this crisis has on American industry cannot be overstated. Illegal immigrants must continually subvert American laws in order to remain in the country. Sometimes they create their own employment opportunities by forming illegal contracting companies that thwart the legal employment requirements that citizens must follow, including taxes, employee rights, and workplace standards. American businesses are subsequently undercut and outbid by these illegal operations.
As an assistant state attorney with the Florida prosecutor’s office, I have also seen firsthand the damaging effects of illegal immigration on our justice system. In Florida, noncitizens are ineligible for a driver’s license, so they must drive without a license or insurance. If they are arrested, county governments have a difficult time determining the best course of action since the federal government refuses to pick up most detained illegal immigrants. With jails already near capacity, Florida taxpayers cannot afford to expand them to hold noncitizen violators of state laws.
The effect is that there is now a lesser standard of justice for illegal immigrants. According to 2020 research by the Cato Institute, for example, Texas’s criminal conviction rate of illegal immigrants is almost 50% lower than for native-born Americans — and that was before Biden’s illegal immigration crisis. Crimes committed by illegal immigrants have since surged.
America has long been a land of freedom and opportunity for all, and legal immigration is a major contributing factor to the success of our melting-pot nation. But the blatant America Last messaging and damaging priorities of the Biden administration cheapen those values that make our nation great.
We must close our border and put an end to the illegal immigration crisis to safeguard American greatness for all who legally seek it. Congress can and should change immigration law if necessary, but in the meantime, Americans should not be forced to sit by and watch their president refuse to honor his constitutional obligation to enforce our laws.
Sources & Citations
- Washington Examiner, “Biden's border crisis proves Americans are not his priority”, March 31, 2023.
- Fox News, “Border crisis: Biden now tells migrants 'Don't come' but had a different message in a 2019 debate”, March 22, 2021.
- Business Insider, “Migrants waiting at the US-Mexico border have been photographed wearing shirts that say 'Biden, please let us in!'”, March 22, 2021.
- Fox News, “Mayorkas under fire after 1,000 migrants rush El Paso border: 'Resign immediately'”, March 13, 2023.
- NBC News, “Illegal border crossings in December surged to highest of Biden's presidency”, January 20, 2023.
- Fox News, “Border agents confirm 1.2 million 'gotaway' migrants under Biden administration”, January 22, 2023.
- Fox News, “Biden admin removing most surveillance balloons at southern border due to cost: sources”, February 8, 2023.
- New York Post, “38 people on terror watchlist nabbed at southern border since Oct. 1”, January 23, 2023.
- The New York Times, “Smuggling Migrants at the Border Now a Billion-Dollar Business”, July 25, 2022.
- Fox News, “Border Patrol seized over 800 pounds of fentanyl between ports of entry since October: source”, February 28, 2023.
- Cato Institute, “New Research on Illegal Immigration and Crime”, October 13, 2020.
- Fox News, “Crimes committed by illegal immigrants surged in 2021 after declining in previous years”, July 7, 2022.
Positions above are attributed to the public statements and published reporting cited here. Quotations are taken from these sources; Radio Purple does not publish unattributed or invented quotes. See an error? Request a correction.
