Biden skips need for legislative reform of immigration policy
OPINION:
“Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.” So goes a saying often attributed to Mark Twain. In Washington, “immigration reform” has fit the same description — until now.
President Biden has done something about it — quietly enacting open-borders policies that his Democratic Party has long sought through legislation. As Americans bear the costs with their lives and treasure, they can almost hear Mr. Biden discreetly murmur, “Migration mission accomplished.”
The effects of the president’s policies have been glaringly apparent, particularly to citizens residing along the northbound thoroughfares
into the Southwest. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 212,266 border encounters in February, a 2% increase over January, bringing the figure thus far in fiscal 2023 to nearly 1.3 million. Total encounters are on course to rocket past the 2.3 million in fiscal 2022 and crest above 3 million entrants this year.
Not to be ignored are the “got-aways” that arrive detected but undetained. The Department of Homeland Security put their number
in fiscal 2021 at 389,155. News sources have placed the 2022 figure at roughly 600,000, but the agency has yet to publish an official figure.
The cause of the border chaos can be clearly traced to Biden administration policies — a blunt fact affirmed last week in a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told lawmakers: “When you look at the main magnet that draws people across our borders illegally, [it’s] whether or not they are going to be released into the United States. Right now, nearly everybody that crosses the border illegally, if they’re not expelled under Title 42, which is only about 30% right now, then they’re released into the United States.”
Title 42, a Trump-era policy allowing rapid deportation of border crossers. With its expiration set for May 11, there is every
reason to anticipate a larger surge of eager recipients of Biden-ordered and citizen-funded largesse.
The current immigration situation can only be viewed as deliberate, even though premeditated policy is seldom so chaotic. Mr. Biden’s
welcoming of migrants by the millions into the U.S. is rationalized as “compassion”: If only the “haves” would shove over to make room, a better life could be had for the “have-nots.”
Americans are a generous people, but the cost of wholesale immigration is staggering: $150.7 billion annually and growing,
according to a study published in March by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. That’s nearly $1,000 per U.S. taxpayer.
More dispiriting is the 100,000-plus annual U.S. drug deaths logged by the National Institutes of Health, largely the result of lethal
fentanyl carried from Mexico into the U.S. by illegal immigrants. Moreover, entrants perish by the hundreds attempting dangerous river
and desert crossings — at least 853 migrants in fiscal 2022 alone.
If the Biden presidency’s monthly average of 194,000 border crossings persists through its current four-year term, the figure will reach 9.3 million — more than the entire population of New Jersey. The attendant financial and human costs of the president’s intentional
U.S. transformation will be proportionally immense.
For Mr. Biden, “immigration reform” is to be achieved without the bother of congressional approval. Rather than lifting civilization
to new heights, he is splintering its foundations. Some accomplishment.
