Do you know how many people have come across the border illegally so far this year?
According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP), it’s 1.1 million people, and the numbers are rising every month.
According to the USCBP’s website, more than 75,000 people crossed the border illegally in January of this year. In February, that number climbed to more than 97,000. In March, it was more than 169,000. In April, 173,000. More than 180,000 people crossed the southern border in May. In June, it was almost 189,000. The June number was a 450% increase over June of 2020, and more than 4% increase from May’s numbers.
USCBP just released the figures for July: 210,000 illegal immigrants crossed the U.S. border that month alone. That is the highest monthly total in more than two decades.
The number of illegals is already more than twice the total number of those who crossed the border during the entire last year of former President Donald Trump’s term — and these are just the ones we know of.
This is not merely a crisis; it is an existential threat.
First, these are election-changing numbers. As we’ve seen, a few thousand additional votes here and there can flip important counties in battleground states, and in so doing, affect the outcome of elections. We’re now talking about millions. Newsweek put it this way: the number of people who have come to this country illegally so far this year is already large enough to “create the tenth largest city in the U.S.”
Regardless of what the migrants’ own objectives for coming to America are, the Democrats’ plan is for these people to vote. Democrats in Congress have been pushing for “amnesty” for illegal immigrants, granting them citizenship and the right to vote. They’re currently trying to use the budget “reconciliation” process, which would enable them to pass such legislation this summer – well before the 2022 midterms, and without any Republican support.
How many undocumented immigrants are in the U.S.? The “official” number, at least before the 2021 surge, was around 11 million. But organizations like the Foundation for American Immigration Reform estimate that it is quite a bit higher. FAIR’s estimate in 2019 was closer to 15 million.
Even if it is the lower number, at this rate, more than 2 million people – or twenty percent of the number of illegals already here – will have come into this country illegally by the end of 2021. If this continues — and there are no indications that it will stop — how many people will have entered the country illegally by the end of Biden’s first term? 8 million? 10 million?
Wouldn’t amnesty only benefit immigrants who have lived in America for years? Not necessarily. Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams are also pushing HR 1 – the “For the People Act.” If passed, HR 1 would make it illegal for state election officials to impose voter identification requirements, including proof of citizenship and state residency. That, coupled with same-day voter registration, ballot harvesting and the sloppy (or non-existent) security or verification processes associated with mail-in ballots, means that it would be effectively impossible to ensure that non-citizens do not illegally cast votes in state or federal elections.
And then there is the Biden administration’s hypocrisy over COVID-19. While the CDC is calling for renewed mask mandates and warning Americans to continue precautionary lifestyle changes, those coming across the border illegally are not being tested for COVID, there is no requirement to quarantine, and the overwhelming majority are not vaccinated against the virus. Many are already infected. (A February article in Scientific American described America’s immigration system as a “COVID superspreader.”) Migrants are being flown, bused and housed all over the country – often in secret and without restrictions. Catholic Charities made national news last week when it was discovered that they paid for illegal migrants infected with COVID to stay in a hotel in Hidalgo County, Texas. They were seen in a Whataburger restaurant “coughing and sneezing … and not wearing masks.”
America actually has immigration laws. But you’d never know it from this administration, which both fails to enforce them and de facto encourages people to come here illegally. (Except for Cubans fleeing communism, who aren’t taken in by saccharine paeans to socialism, and so tend to vote Republican. Those people, the Biden administration tells not to come here.)
President Joe Biden bears significant responsibility for this catastrophe. His executive orders reversed the policies of former President Trump and stopped construction of the border wall (which had already produced a significant reduction in illegal border crossings). Biden’s words and actions have been widely viewed across the globe as an open invitation to enter the U.S. illegally.
But immigration law is properly the province of Congress, not the President. And our Congress is doing nothing to protect our country’s border or the people lawfully within them. Americans should be contacting their congressional representatives and senators and demanding that they take action.
Nevertheless, it is the president’s job to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Given Biden’s apparently diminished capacity (he frequently appears disoriented, he has been caught in camera making bizarre, incomprehensible or untrue statements, and he showed up to a meeting with governors last week with food in his face), it may be asking too much to expect him to enforce the laws of the United States. But if he cannot enforce them, then he should be removed from office under the 25th Amendment. And if he will not enforce them, then he should be impeached and removed from office.
Congress clearly knows how to do that.
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