RUTHFULLY YOURS

In taking a wrecking ball to President Trump’s effective policies to secure the border, Joe Biden has unleashed an unprecedented crisis of public safety and national security.

A flood of illegals is precipitating an increase in violent crime and aiding drug- and human-trafficking cartels. It is also adding to the homeless, burdening government entitlement programs, and spreading disease.

Upon taking office, Biden revoked Trump’s order to build a wall along the southern border. He also ended Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy, the safe third country rule, and most recently (on May 12) Title 42 restrictions. The first made asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their claims were processed. The second mandated that asylum seekers passing through a third country must first apply for refugee status there. The third allowed authorities to immediately expel illegal border crossers, giving them no right of appeal.

Biden replaced “remain in Mexico” with a catch-and-release policy, allowing border crossers to stay in the U.S. until an immigration court resolved their case, which could take four to seven years. Though Title 42 restrictions remained in force till May 12, they were applied to only 30% of asylees after Biden took charge, so most illegal border crossers were released into the country. The Biden administration also set up Regional Processing Centers in countries south of the border. And the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) One mobile app allows foreign nationals in Mexico to schedule immigration appointments at eight points of entry in Arizona, Texas, and California up to 14 days in advance.

Experts say these changes, ending Title 42 in particular, will only benefit cartels running a billion-dollar migrant smuggling business and result in more drug running, child labor, human trafficking, and sex slavery. Around 4.9 million illegals have crossed the border since Biden took office, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reported in April last year. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) makes a similar estimate: 5 million. Fox News described a 900% surge in migrants from China alone. Many Americans are frustrated by this deluge. When a reporter sided with protestors carrying ‘Let Them Cross’ signs in El Paso, Senator Ted Cruz challenged him with: “Do you know how much illegal immigration we had in 2020? In 2020, the last year of the Trump presidency, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.”

According to border expert and author Todd Bensman, the migrants at the border hail from over 160 countries and this could be an espionage and security risk, especially with asylees from China, Pakistan, Syria, and Chechnya. Eighty asylees on the FBI’s terror watch-list crossed the border this year; 98 were apprehended last year. In the last several weeks, he says, the app program and the queues at the border are collapsing and illegals are crowding over the border without waiting for permission.

Reporting from the border in Brownsville, Texas, Bensman witnessed illegals on the Mexican side receiving some kind of signal, whereupon 100-150 of them began swimming in unison across the Rio Grande to the American side. Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was coordinating batches of passages of illegals with Mexican immigration officials on a secured WhatsApp channel.

Security and espionage threats aside, illegal immigration brings with it communicable diseases, an influx of drugs, and child- and sex-trafficking. Unlike legal entrants, illegals do not have to show proof of vaccination; nor are they examined for their state of health. So, the border surge has increased the risk of Americans contracting tuberculosis, hepatitis B, shigellosis, polio, and other communicable diseases. Mexican drug cartels are smuggling so much fentanyl from China that fentanyl overdose has become the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45. In 2021, more than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses and poisonings; 70% of them were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

As for child labor, even the left-leaning New York Times has identified more than 100 migrant children working dangerous jobs and overnight shifts throughout the U.S. Its investigative reporter Hannah Dreier claims that over 85,000 migrant children discharged from shelters since 2021 are missing and have become victims of child labor, based on information she directly received from the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). The department was unable to reach the children after releasing them from custody.

Recently, HHS whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas testified that the U.S. government was serving as “the middleman” in child trafficking operations. “Whether intentional or not,” she said, “it could be argued that the U.S. government has become the middleman in a large scale, multibillion-dollar child trafficking operation that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children.” Instead of being offered the American dream, she said, children are being placed in “modern-day slavery with wicked overlords.”

Of course, the problems caused by illegal aliens are not confined to border states. An NGO, Welcome.US, a collaboration between former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, will soon spread these problems throughout the U.S. Last month, the four ex-presidents teamed up with Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), American Express, and Miles4Migrants. This effort, along with others, will transport illegal aliens from Afghanistan and other third world countries from the southern border and settle them in communities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Members of the Congress have made several efforts to stem the tide. Last year, Rep. Pat Fallon introduced H.R. 9470, with support from FAIR, and this month, he followed it up with H.R. 1394. The bills are aimed at expediting the removal of illegal asylees from the border. “No more will illegal aliens receive a get-out-of-jail free card from the expedited removal process because they’ve traveled 100 air miles into the interior of the United States,” Fallon said. “It’s time to restore this important tool for Border Patrol and immigration authorities.”

Similarly, in early May, Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) introduced legislation that would allow Title 42 enforcement to continue past the deadline. In a May 7 interview on CBS, Sinema, a former Democrat turned independent, condemned the administration’s lack of preparedness. “The Biden administration had two years to prepare for the end of Title 42 and did not do so. And our state is going to bear the brunt.”

And before the expiration of Title 42, House Republicans introduced a bill (H.R. 2) sponsored by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) to secure our borders by finishing the wall between the U.S. and Mexico and grant new resources and more staff to the CBP. The bill will also allow for the expedited expulsion of illegals, like the expulsion rules under Title 42.

The Biden administration has brought upon America a crisis of emergency proportions. Bensman goes to the extent of titling his book on the subject Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History. Open borders and unfettered immigration will only bring lawlessness and chaos. That is what the Left and the progressives want. We, the people, must fight back to protect our sovereignty, safety, national security, and – above all – the American way of life.