Biden's Border Crisis: This Is What Failure Looks Like

While the so-called legacy media largely continues to ignore the crisis on the southern border, the situation there continues to be chaotic and represents a real threat to the national security of the United States.  Further, as we have pointed out at the ACLJ, it is a moral crisis with sexual and human trafficking, violations of child labor laws, the misplacement of children, and the growing number of deaths from fentanyl poisoning.  This does not even begin to address those who die along the way to the U.S./Mexico border, some in the rough terrain from exposure and others killed by the drug cartels.

DHS Secretary Mayorkas continues to downplay all this.  In a press conference last week, one would have thought that, in spite of a small number of issues, things are going swimmingly at the border thanks to the diligence of the Biden Administration. Additionally, the Administration keeps saying that the fault of the border crisis lies with Congress. But Congress is not charged with enforcing the law. That is the responsibility of the Executive branch. There are laws on the books that the Administration refuses to enforce. And Congress passing more laws will not change the situation at the border. The President is the de facto chief law enforcement officer in the nation, according to the U.S. Constitution.  Congress makes laws, and the Executive branch enforces the laws.  As long as the present Administration refuses to enforce the laws, the crisis will not go away.

Here is part of what failure looks like:

• Over 5 million people from 150 countries have been admitted into the U.S. after illegally crossing the border since President Biden took office.  This does not include the estimated 1 million people who were not caught by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the so-called “gotaways.”  This number is the equivalent of the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago combined.

• Of the over 300,000 unaccompanied children who crossed the border and were placed with “sponsors” in the U.S., authorities have lost track of 85,000 of them along with the people who sponsored them.  Most of the sponsors are not family members.  Rather they are people in the U.S. who volunteered to take the children in, some of them with little vetting.  The New York Times reports many of the children are forced into child labor or sexual slavery.

• Last year, 98 people on what is informally dubbed the Terrorism Watchlist were apprehended trying to cross the border, according to the FBI’s Terrorism Screening Center.  This year, with only five months having passed, another 88 people on that list have been detained.  However, in the huge group of gotaways, we literally do not know how many are also connected to terrorism, nor do we know who or where they are.  This poses the largest threat to homeland security since the events leading up to 9/11 and puts every American—including you—in danger. We also know that the Biden Administration has been intentionally hiding the fact that members of the Terrorism Watchlist have been apprehended at the border. You can learn more about how we caught Biden in this big cover-up here.

• While touting their intentions under Title 8, now that Title 42 has ended, the truth is that most people now crossing the border are released into the U.S.  Border officials are so overwhelmed that they are releasing hundreds of thousands of illegals into the U.S. with a Notice to Appear (NTA) three and four years from now.  Meanwhile, these illegals are free to live anywhere in the country.  Thousands of others are not even given an NTA.  They are given free transportation to anywhere in the U.S. and asked to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of their own volition.  When Secretary Mayorkas was recently asked if this was the “honor system” for border security, he vehemently denied it.  Yet in the same press conference, he later stated that if the migrants did not “honor” their promise to self-report, they would be in trouble. That certainly sounds like an honor system.

• Here is an alarming fact: On the U.S. side of the border, massive numbers of people illegally entering are depositing trash, wet clothing, and other personal articles all along the riverbank. The photos of the volume of trash along the border are shocking.  But wait.  Even more shocking are the hundreds of personal identification documents discarded with the other trash—including passports, driver’s licenses, and other ID documents.  This serves multiple purposes.  If they have been deported before or have a criminal record, they can change their identity and literally claim to be anybody they wish.  Additionally, if they are on the Terrorism Watchlist, they can claim another identity and still possibly be granted entrance into the U.S.  DHS does not have fingerprint data on everyone who is on the watchlist. It is yet another way the Biden Administration is facilitating those who wish us harm to live among us.

• Emergencies have been declared in multiple U.S. cities over the thousands of illegals entering the cities, taxing medical, educational, and housing facilities.  Shelters are out of room.  Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are overwhelmed, all while reaping financial rewards from the government for their endeavors. In many border towns, hundreds of immigrants are literally sleeping on the streets under Red Cross blankets.  It is a sad sight to witness. 

• Some responses to this are insulting and troubling.  In California, there is a proposal to give every illegal immigrant $300 a week in unemployment benefits, a measure that will only increase the number of those who wish to come here illegally.  In New York, a hotel that houses homeless veterans is now evicting the U.S. military veterans in order to place illegal immigrants in the rooms.  Hotels like this make much more money housing illegal immigrants than veterans.  This is shameful.

The only real way to stop this insanity, injustice, and humanitarian morass is for the Biden Administration to radically change its responses to the chaos at the border by implementing the following positive measures: 

• Send the message (and actually implement it) that if one crosses illegally, they will be deported immediately and put on a list banning them from re-entry.
• No asylum hearings or NTAs to investigate asylum claims will happen if one crosses anywhere but at a legal port of entry. 
• If they did not ask for asylum in the first country they entered after leaving their home country, they are ineligible to be granted asylum in the U.S.  No exceptions.
• All those seeking entry into the U.S. who present at the border must wait in Mexico while their claims are addressed.
• While this is all taking place, begin completion of the border wall so all who seek entry into the U.S. must go through a normal, authorized border crossing.  This would be a compassionate and humanitarian thing to do and help create order out of chaos.
• Quit blaming Congress, even though they must enact comprehensive immigration reform and enforce the laws we do have regarding border security and immigration—something the Biden Team has consistently refused to do.

These are real solutions to the border crisis.  While they would take time, there would be immediate positive results if implemented.  In spite of the current Administration’s talk about taking the crisis seriously and their claims of success at the border, those on the Left and President Biden oppose these real solutions.  That is shameful, because what we are presently witnessing is not working. After examining the policies and practices of the Biden Administration at the border, THIS IS WHAT FAILURE LOOKS LIKE.