Jim Hartman
Courtesy Photo
A total of 212,672 individuals were encountered crossing our southern border in July, the highest number of migrant arrests in the last 21 years. In July 2020, by comparison, there were 40,929 individual arrests marking more than a fivefold increase in the same month this year.
The flood of people this July is a major departure from past seasonal trends when illegal border crossings plummet during summer. In March, Biden wrongly insisted the border flow was normal and would slow by summertime.
Since taking office, the Biden administration has presided over consecutive month-to-month increases in border encounters, with the crisis now acute. In June, 188,829 people illegally entered the country.
In the first seven months of Biden’s presidency, more than 1.1 million people have been arrested crossing our southern border with a substantial number of additional people entering illegally without being apprehended.
If the surge of migrants keeps growing, more than 2 million will be entering the United States this year.
To deflect criticism, Vice President Harris was belatedly dispatched to visit “Northern Triangle” countries in late June to tell illegal immigrants, “Do not come.” With this pose of toughness, Harris also invented a list of “root causes” like climate change and specific problems in Central American countries claiming they drove illegal immigration.
The real cause of the migrant tsunami is that Biden campaigned for president with the promise he would suspend deportations, offer a pathway to citizenship, and guarantee illegal immigrants government healthcare.
Millions of people made the trip to the southern border because they knew Biden would do nothing to stop them. Numerous interviews with migrants, conducted by reporters like Miriam Jordan of the New York Times, confirmed that Biden was the key reason they decided to cross illegally.
The New York Times also reported U.S. authorities have encountered illegal border crossers not just from Mexico or Central and South American countries but from 160 nations around the globe. People are coming to Mexico from distant spots — Russia, India, Syria, Vietnam — to cross illegally into the U.S. confident Biden will let them stay.
On assuming office, Biden scrapped President Trump’s immigration policies, which were working .
Biden halted border wall construction projects and called on Congress to cut 96 percent of border security assets out of the budget.
He ended the Migrant Protection Protocols, Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which obligated asylum-seekers to stay on the other side of the border pending their court date. This filtered out fraudulent claims, which accounted for the vast majority.
Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that required the deportation of all border-crossers from Mexico and several Central American for the sake of public health, ended with Biden implementing an exception for unaccompanied children. A record deluge of 18,800 unaccompanied children crossed the border in March.
After indicating it would end Title 42 in July, the Biden administration reversed course in August, renewing the order indefinitely as a result of widespread COVID-19.
A substantial number of people who cross the border illegally have COVID-19, with McAllen, Texas, declaring a state of emergency when 7,000 infected immigrants arrived there.
The Biden administration refuses to tell cities and states how many people they are sending — and who they are sending to their communities. Some illegal immigrants have gang connections, including to the infamous MS-13 El Salvadorian gang.
Even the Washington Post editorial board (Aug. 8) noted Biden’s immigration policy “has been a failure” and he “needs a coherent strategy for the border.”
Voters agree. The most recent poll (Fox News) found 35% approve v. 57% disapprove of Biden’s policy on immigration — a yawning 22% deficit.
Jim Hartman is an attorney residing in Genoa. E-mail lawdocman1@aol.com.