Our southwest border is in crisis, and the Biden Administration’s answer isn’t to start enforcing the law, it is to swap out personnel – specifically, by accepting the retirement of the Border Patrol chief, so he could be replaced with a new chief. But changing bodies at the top of the structure won’t affect outcomes if the administration doesn’t make a simple decision to reverse itself and begin enforcing the law, and change the policies that have caused the crisis. Sadly, there’s no indication
In other words, don’t expect much to come of these changes.
That’s the feeling I get after a recent trip to the border, where I spoke with Border Patrol agents, sheriffs, and local residents of border communities in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Since Joe Biden took over and reversed President Trump’s strong policies on the border – beginning with enforcing the law – the surge of illegal immigration has reached record heights. Biden overturned the Migrant Protection Protocols (AKA the “Remain in Mexico” policy), stopped construction on the border wall, overhauled the asylum regime, and reinstituted the “catch and release” program for illegal immigrants apprehended while trying to enter the country.
The result has been a humanitarian disaster, on multiple levels.
First, there’s the simple surge in numbers. A look at Customs and Border Protection’s website reveals the staggering rise in the number of “Southwest Land Border Encounters” – from 78,414 in January 2021, when Biden took office, to 180,597 in May 2021, just four months later, to 241,136 in May 2022, to 204,561 in May 2023.
That’s a tripling of the number of encounters at the Southwest border in just two years. And despite the slight dip between May 2022 and May 2023, the long-term trend shows It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.
The numbers don’t lie – despite this June 6, 2023 Department of Homeland Security press release, which says “unlawful entries between ports of entry along the Southwest Border have decreased by more than 70 percent since May 11,” the May numbers, not released until June 20, show that unlawful entries between ports of entry are still absurdly high, at 204,561 encounters. That’s not a 70 percent reduction from anything. What in the world are they talking about?
Meanwhile, as the numbers of encounters at the Southwest border increases, so too does the amount of illegal drugs that are carried across the border. And so too does the amount of human trafficking rise.
And let’s be clear – “human trafficking” is a euphemism for what goes on when migrants are used by the cartels. Women seeking to enter the United States are all too often forced into sexual slavery, to be used as prostitutes until they pay off their “debt” to the cartels. Older men can be forced into low-wage, no-benefits jobs with unscrupulous employers, or be dragooned into the drug trade, until they pay off their “debt” to the cartels; younger men can be forced into acting as mules to carry illegal drugs until they pay off their “debt” to the cartels.
Not surprisingly, those “debts” are rarely paid off.
Worse, our tax dollars are paying for it.
You read that right: The United States Government, under Joe Biden, is subsidizing criminal activity by foreign drug cartels. When the Border Patrol processes them, agents hand these illegal immigrants a ticket to appear at a date years in the future, sometimes with an ankle bracelet, sometimes with a cell phone, and then they are released into the interior of the country – and we pay for their travel by air or bus to the destination of their choice. In doing so, we are helping the cartels spread their distribution networks.
We are doing the cartels’ work for them, and we are even paying for it.
Now comes a new Border Patrol chief. Jason Owens, a 27-year veteran of the force, will take over for outgoing chief Raul Ortiz effective June 30. Owens has served for the last several years as chief of the Del Rio sector, the nation’s second-busiest sector as far as fighting the border crisis is concerned, following only the El Paso sector.
Owens has a good reputation. Yet he’s only one man, and his political superiors are still wedded to a failing policy. He’s got his work cut out for him.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.