Illegal Immigration in Context
Other than numbering among America’ 50 states, what do Arizona, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Utah, Nevada, Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming have in common?
In rank order, most to least, each of those thirty-seven states has a population smaller than the number of illegal immigrants that President(ish) Joe Biden’s administration has admitted across America’s open southern border and released or resettled into the United States since he assumed office.
According to 2023 statistics, Arizona has a population of 7,453,517.
In an August, 2023 press release, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported just under 7.5 million cumulative illegal Biden-era border crossers about which the agency knows or is willing to admit. Surely, many more were missed, but let’s assume just 7.5 million illegal entries during the Biden regime, a number exceeding the combined population of America’s ten least populous states!
Worse, CBP reports that, of the 7.5 million illegals Biden has admitted, 5.18 million were single, mostly young adult males.
Single adult males tend to be less encumbered and more mobile than families, so many more likely evaded apprehension – assuming that “apprehension” even factors into Biden’s border calculus.
Under Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, uncontrolled illegal immigration is encouraged – facilitated – even though the administration’s policy is an extra-constitutional violation of Biden’s oath of office. Article II of the US Constitution states that the most fundamental duty of the president is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Clearly, Biden is deliberately nullifying rather than faithfully executing America’s immigration laws. In fact, the White House inadvertently confirmed its policy of non-execution in a June press release claiming that “the administration’s plan is working as intended.”
Even Democrats have begun expressing their disaffection. One website recently reported that “Democratic leaders in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Washington, D.C., have declared states of emergency in response to the border crisis that occurred after…Joe Biden took office.”
The New York Times, Biden’s/Democrats’ normally reliable handmaiden, has featured headlines such as, “[Mayor] Eric Adams Asserts Migrant Crisis Will ‘Destroy New York’.” And NY Governor Kathy Hochul said that “there is a limit to what [her non-border state] can do” for illegal immigrants.
When President Donald Trump took office, the Democrat-controlled Congress refused to authorize a border wall, so Trump declared a state of emergency and directed $8.1 billion to its construction. Trump also enforced a “Remain in Mexico” policy that stranded illegals in Mexico while their “asylum” claims were adjudicated. He announced that anyone crossing the U.S.-Mexico border who failed to first apply for asylum in Mexico would be ineligible for asylum here.
Mr. Trump also made an effort to end the Obama administration’s “catch and release” policy, and threatened to impose stiff tariffs on Mexican products unless Mexico got serious about border control. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promptly sent troops to detain illegals on his side of the border.
Illegal crossings plummeted.
As president, Biden immediately ditched Trump’s successful policies and opened the border. Under Trump, the monthly average of illegal border crossers, many (most?) of whom were apprehended, was fewer than 50,000. Biden’s average is at least five times higher.
Furthermore, the Biden administration cannot – or will not – identify the national origins of the illegals it has admitted (some estimates exceed 150, including unfriendly countries), their criminal records, if any, their intentions here, or their vaccination and health status. American citizens remain in the dark about illegals’ threats to national security and public health and safety, and nobody knows how many children have been trafficked or everywhere the administration has resettled – and still is resettling – illegals.
Incredibly – as in “not credibly” – White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently declared, “[Biden] has done more to secure the border and to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else. He really has.”
The feeble redundancy of her last three words is the “tell” that the claim is a colossal lie – and Jean-Pierre knows it.
If Biden genuinely wished to solve the border crisis and preserve America’s national sovereignty, he would begin by reinstating Mr. Trump’s policies.
Don’t hold your breath…
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2023/10/02/jerry-shenk-illegal-immigration-in-context/
