Biden’s migrant surge swamps DC
On direct orders from President Joe Biden, the Department of Homeland Security released 79,652 migrants into the United States last month after they were detained for illegally crossing the southern border. This brings the total number of illegal immigrants caught and released into the U.S. on Biden’s watch to 1,335,959.
That is a population larger than nine states and twice that of the District of Columbia.
At this pace, Biden will catch and release over 3.5 million illegal immigrants into the U.S. in his first term — a population larger than that of Chicago.
The border communities of the Rio Grande Valley have cried out to Biden and Democrats in Congress for help. Not only has Biden refused to listen, but he hasn’t even bothered to visit the border to witness the crisis that his policies have created. He would rather ignore the problem, and he hopes voters do as well.
Unfortunately for Biden, more and more cities are discovering that every community is a border community when immigration laws go unenforced. On Face the Nation this Sunday, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser complained that too many migrants were being bused from the southern border and filling up homeless shelters in D.C.
“This is a very significant issue,” Bowser said. “We have, for sure, called on the federal government to work across state lines to prevent people from really being tricked into getting on buses. We think they’re largely asylum-seekers who are going to final destinations that are not Washington, D.C.”
Bowser is right about the migrants being asylum-seekers with other destinations. But these migrants are not being tricked. The vast majority know exactly where they are going, and D.C. is a lot closer than Del Rio, Texas, to their end goal.
“Local taxpayers are not picking up the tab and should not pick up the tab,” Bowser continued. “We really need a coordinated federal response.”
She is right that it is a challenge housing and feeding these migrants while they arrange for final transportation. If it is a challenge for Mayor Bowser in her big city with ample resources, you can imagine what it is like for the border towns that are being overwhelmed. She might consider visiting those places to see how they are coping.
The proper coordinated response would be to let Border Patrol agents do their job and return migrants to Mexico while they wait for their asylum claims to be adjudicated. This is how President Donald Trump avoided a crisis like this one.
Before Trump instituted his Remain in Mexico policy, over 100,000 migrants were being arrested after illegally crossing the southern border every month. Once Remain in Mexico was fully implemented, that number plummeted. Migrants don’t risk illegally crossing the border when they know they will be denied entry if caught instead of being released on purpose into the interior of the U.S.
The Supreme Court ruled last month that Biden has the authority to end Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy. But the court left open the possibility that Biden failed to end the program properly pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act. The court also stressed that it was not ruling on the legality of Biden using his “parole” authority to release tens of thousands of migrants into the country every month.
Those claims are still being litigated and are likely to end up back before the Supreme Court. Until then, the Biden border crisis will continue unabated, and more communities will be swamped with migrants, just like D.C.
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