Biden’s Ordering 1,500 Troops to Border Does Not Address the Border Crisis
President Biden has ordered 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border as the situation there continues to spiral from chaotic to out of control. With Title 42 going away on May 11, the crisis is set to get unbelievably worse as one of the few tools to send people back across the border ends. The State Department issued a statement that when Title 42 goes away, that does not mean the border is open. They plan to use Title 8, which was instituted 83 years ago. Part of the statement reads:
When the Title 42 order lifts at 11:59 PM on May 11, the United States will return to using Title 8 immigration authorities to expeditiously process and remove individuals who arrive at the U.S. border unlawfully. These decades-old authorities carry steep consequences for unlawful entry, including at least a five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution for repeated attempts to enter unlawfully. The return to processing under Title 8 is expected to reduce the number of repeat border crossings over time, which increased significantly under Title 42.
Do not be reassured. Title 8 is full of loopholes; the Biden Administration is using them and will continue to do so. For example, those who claim persecution or that they are in danger in their country of origin are admitted into the U.S. Families with children will be admitted under Title 8, as they are now under the Administration’s policy. Unaccompanied children, now numbering in the tens of thousands annually, will continue to be admitted—even though many of them are actually being trafficked. They are sent across the border by criminal groups in Mexico with false assurances and then often sent to counterparts of the criminal groups in the U.S., where they are forced into child labor or sex slavery. It is a moral nightmare for the children and a moral blight on the U.S. Additionally, Title 8 expulsions require a judicial hearing, and the immigration court system is so overwhelmed that at the present rate, it will take years for the system to catch up.
The deployment of troops to the border does not address the crisis above or the useless policies of the Biden team. There are already 2,500 troops deployed along the border—a legacy Biden inherited from the previous Administration—and they have not been redeployed. These are federally activated National Guard and Army Reserve troops and are separate from the 4,500 Texas Guard troops ordered there by Governor Abbot during Operation Lone Star. The incoming U.S. troops on the border are not allowed to confront the illegal migrants. They will monitor the border to keep U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) informed. CBP is so overwhelmed they often cannot respond to illegal crossers, even if the military troops report them—and the troops cannot confront or detain them. Additionally, the troops deployed to the border will also conduct warehouse duties and help with paperwork—something the U.S. military does not have as its primary purpose, nor should they. But this Administration has never understood how to utilize the U.S. Armed Forces.
It is alarming that more than 2 million people have been caught crossing the border since 2021. Over 1.2 million crossed the border last year alone. This does not count the gotaways, numbering in the tens of thousands this year and 600,000 last year. Almost 200 individuals on the Terrorism Watchlist have been detained, with an untold number of people on this list in the groups of gotaways. When Biden became President, he announced that families with children and unaccompanied children would not be deported. The border was rushed. President Biden has fundamentally changed how immigration law is enforced. Under the Biden Administration, illegal migrants realize that not only will they not be punished, but also the Biden team will help them complete their journey.
We honor and respect all our men and women in uniform. May God bless and protect them. But they are not an answer to the crisis on the border.
Building a border wall, enforcing existing laws, stopping the loopholes, and deporting people who come here illegally are part of the answer. President Obrador, Mexico’s leftist president, has said illegal immigration is a human right and has stopped assisting the U.S. with the crisis. Obrador said he would not “continue the dirty work” of helping the U.S. with its border problem. Like his predecessor, Biden should tell the Mexican president that all financial aid to Mexico stops immediately unless his policies change. When Trump threatened this and a tariff on Mexican imports, Obrador deployed 6,000 Mexican troops to stop the flow of migrants coming through Mexico and began cooperating with the U.S. Combined with the beginning of a border wall and the Remain in Mexico policy (while asylum claims were processed) that Obrador agreed to at President Trump’s insistence, illegal crossings dropped dramatically.
Essentially, the new deployment of U.S. troops is a photo-op for President Biden in his attempt to show the American people that he is doing something about the border. With Title 42 ending, experts predict that the illegal crossings will double almost immediately. This is a political liability to a President who just announced his campaign for a second term. Biden has no intention of fixing the crisis on the border (or even allowing his DHS Secretary to call it a crisis), but he wants you, the American people, to think he is fixing it and that he takes the matter seriously.