Courtesy of Mark Green’s RealClearPolitics
Since early 2021, Americans have watched as illegal immigrants continue to cross our southwestern border unhindered. They have read in horror the stories of innocent Americans who have been killed by illegal immigrants. They have seen their families and friends killed by fentanyl that came across the border. And the Biden-Harris administration has largely done nothing.
But now, after months of declining apprehensions at ports of entry along the southwestern border, the Biden-Harris administration is taking a victory lap. But such hasty celebration ignores the reality of the ongoing nature of this crisis.
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Before explaining why, Americans must understand that even if no more foreign nationals are banned from entering the country by the end of Biden and Harris’ term, millions of people who have already entered our country have caused damage that will take decades to repair. For many families, such as Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray, the damage is absoluteness Collapse.
But if Biden and Harris want to talk numbers, the president and his “border czar” won’t be able to get away with it. While they watched, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intercepted more than 1 million people. 10 million encounters There are another 2 million “fugitives” at large across the country and across our borders who are at large.
Many on the left like to appeal to the history of Ellis Island as an excuse for mass immigration, despite the fact that these people arrived according to the laws of the time. But the number of people who came through Ellis Island was Also about 12 million people – For 62 years, from 1892 to 1954.
The number of inadmissible aliens who have crossed our border without encountering or apprehending them since the beginning of fiscal year (FY) 2021 is unprecedented. To claim victory now because of a temporary decrease in border crossings is to show willful ignorance of the nature of this ongoing crisis, because these numbers alone do not tell the full story of what Americans are going through.
Related: Illegal Border Crossings Surpass 12.5 Million Since Biden-Harris Take Office
First, there is a lasting financial impact. As of mid-June 2024, More than 205,000 illegal immigrants Arriving in New York City in the spring of 2022, Mayor Eric Adams said the arrival and the costs that come with it “will destroy new york city.” Smaller cities will also suffer as a result of years of uncontrolled crossings. Springfield, Ohio, with a population of 60,000, About 20,000 Haitians arrived. Since the crisis began, housing and other services have been under great strain. Whitewater, Wisconsin, has a population of just 15,000. I was overwhelmed As the 1,000 illegal aliens arrived, “often with basic English skills,” said a Sanford, Maine, official last year. “We were recruited. … We were overwhelmedAfter the cost of caring for illegal aliens tripled.
DHS reported More than 80 percent of illegal aliens who are “neither directly removed or deported by CBP nor persistently detained by ICE” remain in the United States years later. These communities and thousands like them will have to deal with these costs for years.
Second, consider the ongoing public safety implications of what is happening at the Southwest border. Since fiscal year 2021, Border Patrol has apprehended illegal aliens with criminal records. More than doubled From fiscal years 2017-2020. What’s worse is that criminals and individuals with possible ties to terrorism have been released inland and are still being released. In fact, it was recently reported that the Biden-Harris administration actually released 99 people inland. They knew who was on the terrorist watch list.. According to a DHS source, ICE officials have been “encouraged not to deport even illegal immigrants who have final removal orders in place.” Connected with a gang“I was forced to release people,” said John Fabbricatore, a former ICE field officer. You shouldn’t have gone out on the street.”
How many other threats to our safety and security are there, unwittingly released or entered as refugees? How many more people who have never committed a crime in their own country or have never been caught are now committing their first crime against an American victim?
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Finally, despite recent declines in illegal border crossings, ~ between Port of entry, encounter with foreigners who are not allowed entry ~ in The ports of entry are as follows: record highThis is largely because the administration has designed numerous illegal mass release programs to encourage people to enter the country this way. Consider that in February 2021, the first month of Biden and Harris’s term, CBP recorded just 17,744 encounters at ports of entry nationwide. By July 2024, that number was 110,615. Encouraging people to cross the border at ports of entry would certainly reduce the spectacle of overwhelmed Border Patrol agents and facilities, but it ultimately yields the same result. Foreign nationals who are not allowed to enter the country are released inland. And now one of these mass parole programs is temporarily Closed due to massive fraud.
This border crisis is not over. It has never been over. It is time for Congress and the American people to say enough.
Representative Mark E. Greene, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, represents Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.
Jointly published with permission In RealClearWire.
