Does the Biden Administration Really Care?
As someone who makes my living with words for over 40 years, there are things I try to avoid. For example, hyperbole. While overstating a matter can be used for literary effect, humor, or to get attention, generally a piece of serious writing should stick to provable or quantifiable facts and avoid exaggeration. That’s why in our blogs on this website we use hyperlinks, a way of sourcing our material. A writer should also avoid generalizations. Statements like “everyone believes” or “a person always behaves this way” are generally not helpful and not accurate.
With that said, I sincerely ask the question regarding the issues on our southern border: Does the Biden Administration really care? We want to believe they care. But the evidence seems to indicate they do not care. That, or they do not know what is going on along the border. However, which is worse: An Administration and a President of the most powerful nation in human history that is totally unaware of a crisis that rages on the border? Or a leader and his advisers who do not care? Either should be alarming for all people in the United States.
According to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), last month over 200,000 people were apprehended illegally crossing the border, the most in one month in over 20 years. In the present fiscal year, 1,217,802 people have been caught crossing; by the end of this year, well over 2 million people will be confronted by our CBP crossing without authorization. This is the equivalent of a city the size of Houston, Texas—in just one year! Over 2 million people were apprehended in 2021 as well.
Meanwhile, while some are turned away and deported, planeloads and busloads of illegal immigrants are transported all across America. While they are given Notices to Appear (NTA) for an immigration hearing at a future date, records show that many are never seen or heard from again. For the majority who try to appear, there are over 1.5 million immigration cases backlogged in our immigration system. The CBP believes that if Title 42 is canceled, as the Biden Administration plans, 18 to 20 thousand people a day will flood the border, overwhelming an already-overwhelmed border patrol.
This is, among other things, a moral/humanitarian issue, and a national security issue. The border is one of the most serious and consequential matters facing the United States. And yet, the Biden Administration is seemingly oblivious to all that is going on. There are no obvious proactive responses to the border issue. Unless questioned by a reporter, it is seldom mentioned. They refuse to even consider a physical barrier to discourage illegal immigration. Illegal crossings have stopped where the previous Administration built a wall. Yet millions of dollars of wall-construction material already purchased by the U.S. lies unused on the ground along the border.
Last year, 42 people on the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) were apprehended by U.S. authorities along the border, according to the Department of Homeland Security. NOTE: Most terrorists trying to enter the U.S. do not use an official entry port and do not turn themselves in to the CBP. Terrorists with intentions to do harm to America will logically seek to cross anywhere else along the unguarded, open border. Because CBP agents are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people turning themselves in, there are hundreds of other places for people with malevolent intentions to sneak across. So, if 42 people with ties to terrorism were caught—how many more crossed the border, got away, and are now somewhere in the country?
After the terror attacks of 9/11, the report afterward revealed that part of the reason 9/11 happened was due to a “failure of imagination” on the part of the United States. We simply did not imagine that a terror network would spend all that time planning the operation, taking flying lessons, doing surveillance, and ultimately crashing airliners into buildings, killing thousands of people. Does the Administration fail to take seriously the threat to national security that comes from an unsecure border? Are we not imagining the planning and coordination that could be taking place at this very moment by unknown numbers of people on the terrorism watchlist who are entering the United States? While we know that 2 million people crossed last year and will cross the border this year, an estimated 800,000 more will cross and get away without ever being apprehended. How many of them are on the terrorism watchlist?
This is an obvious national security issue—writ large. Why not a wall? Why not keep the Remain in Mexico policy in place? Why not keep Title 42 in place to expedite deportations? Why not reinstitute agreements with Mexico and the countries of the so-called Northern Triangle whereby our aid to them is tied to those nations policing their own borders and reducing illegal migration? Why wouldn’t the Biden Administration do everything in their power to secure the border and protect America?
What is equally disturbing is the human trafficking and sex trafficking that is inadvertently facilitated by the Biden Administration’s border policies today. Just like drug smugglers and terrorists, human and sex traffickers a) Do not use official ports of entry, and b) Definitely do not turn themselves in to border agents. They take advantage of the porous border and the sheer thousands of people rushing the border daily.
There are an estimated 25 million people who are victims of trafficking around the world. Approximately 4.8 million are forced into sexual exploitation. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by forced labor, accounting for 99% of the victims in the commercial sex industry. Experts believe that 20,000 to 30,000 children are introduced into the sex trade in the United States every year. Think about that. The average age of a sex-trafficking victim is 15. Some are much younger.
We know that an untold number of children and youth are smuggled across the border and used in the sex industry in the United States. Why would the Administration—for that reason alone—not say “enough is enough” and do everything in their power to stop the illegal flow of people across our southern border. This must be one of the top moral issues of our time. To do nothing, to allow the border to be as open as it is, is absolutely, morally inexcusable.
This is to say nothing of the fentanyl (made in China and shipped to drug cartels in Mexico) that crosses the border. Over 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year. Drugs, laced with fentanyl, are the main cause of accidental overdoses. This is also not addressing the immigrants who die along the way and others who are sexually assaulted or robbed as they travel north toward the U.S.
Even so, national security concerns and sex trafficking should be enough for the Biden Administration to change course and take border security seriously. That should be an impetus for the Administration to care—and to vividly show how much they care.
Progressives on the Left want an open border and have what is virtually an open border now. Let’s be real: If people crossing illegally face no consequences, are given cell phones, food, shelter, and free transportation to any locale in the country—folks, we have an open border. If drug cartels and sex traffickers find it easy to ply their trade along the border—we have an open border.
The American people need for President Biden and the Administration to care—to be moved and concerned about what is happening along the border. In the name of human decency, have compassion and mercy on the victims of traffickers and stop the facilitation of these criminals. To honor their sacred vows to our Constitution, do all in their power at the border to defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The border is seldom mentioned by Biden officials. The President and Vice President have not gone there to see what is going on or to encourage our Border Patrol agents. If asked, they would say they care. Show us you care. Talk is very inexpensive. Action can be costly. But act. Show us you care. Make national security and human rights and human decency a priority along our southern border.