Having reportedly lost their non-existent 'sense of urgency' about the border crisis, the Democrats are resorting to intellectually-insulting gaslighting on the issue, countering a major speech from Donald Trump on the issue by putting up billboards that blame him -- the man who was president before the crisis, not the current president who caused the crisis -- for 'breaking the border.' The argument here, such as it exists, is that because Trump worked against a flawed Senate bill in 2024 (they pretend as if HR 2 never passed the lower chamber), he "broke" the Southern border in 2021, 2022, and 2023. In Trump's final year in office, border encounters numbered approximately 400,000 for the year, largely thanks to a series of successful policies his team implemented. By Biden's third year in office, US officials tallied approximately 400,000 border encounters every two months, totaling more than 2.4 million for the year. But Trump "broke the border," or something:
Absurd DNC billboards. Even if you supported the failed bipartisan bill, the border has been historically broken since Biden took office, directly due to his policies, which he refuses to reverse. Legislation stalling 3+ years into the crisis didn’t “break” the border. pic.twitter.com/IFBPYDwIJ6
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 2, 2024
Biden's disapproval rating on immigration hit 67 percent in the latest Fox News poll. He receives far more blame for the problem than Trump does, as the 45th president easily wins the head-to-head trust battle on border issues. And it's not like immigration and the border are minor concerns for the American electorate:
GALLUP: What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today? (Open-ended)
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) March 29, 2024
1. Immigration 28%
2. The government/poor leadership 19%
3. Economy 14%
4. High cost of living 11%
---
10. Abortion 3%
19. War in the Middle East 2%https://t.co/Do4L6BxDRL pic.twitter.com/d7fErv1hxW
Ahead of Trump's speech in Michigan, I discussed the terrible crime that brought the former president to that community. A young woman was recently murdered by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record who was deported under Trump, but managed to sneak back into the country, presumably as a Biden-era 'got-away.' Trump was highlighting this horrible case, as Biden ignored it, as usual:
Relatedly, I discussed Biden’s border crisis & the political battle over immigration this morning on @AmericaNewsroom: pic.twitter.com/v61tc3BaXg
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 2, 2024
As for Trump's remarks, which neither CNN nor MSNBC aired, the latter cable news network offered this "context" to Trump showcasing the string of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants:
DNC spin: MSNBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard laments Trump using "this severe immigration rhetoric for a long time," but "The data does not bear out the fact that undocumented immigrants kill Americans at any greater rate than legal Americans." pic.twitter.com/ykGJl8UP2R
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 2, 2024
I've made this very point many times before, in an effort to avoid unfairly painting an entire group of people with a broad brush. But I also responded to this data citation with this: "Whether [the previous data] holds up after we get our arms around the impact of the 10 million illegal border crossings during the Biden crisis remains to be seen. Also, illegal immigrants don’t have to be disproportionately criminal or violent as a group in order for Americans to feel extra, righteous disgust over violent crimes being committed by perps who have no right to be in the country in the first place—many of whom have amassed significant rap sheets before committing their most serious attacks." I'll be fascinated to see if we get good statistics on how the 'illegal immigrant crime' angle does or does not change once the dust settles (if it settles) on this unprecedented crisis, and the overall data is updated. Will the lessons be the same, or will they be different. There's at least some evidence that a lot more dangerous people have been entering the country illegally under Biden.
What's more alarming than raw encounters stats, or even arrests like this one, are the nearly two million known got-aways that have entered the country unimpeded on Biden's watch. We have no idea who these people are, or where they are. And this was just one day's worth. Happy Easter, America:
Almost 1,000 "gotaway" migrants illegally entered the United States through the southern border on Sunday, Fox News has learned. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) source told Fox News that 919 "gotaways" – illegal immigrants who are not recorded in the official border numbers each month – passed through the border. The migrants are still tracked by the CBP internally. The most recent numbers bring the 7-day average of "gotaways" at the southern border to 761 per day.
Laken Riley's accused killer was a Biden parolee. Ruby Garcia's confessed killer was almost certainly one of the endless stream of got-aways, waltzing back into the country, even after previous deportations, in many cases. There were more than 20,000 known got-aways recorded (but not caught) in the month of March:
In total, more than 209,000 crossings (encounter+POE +got-aways) at the southern border in March -- and they'll call that a 'good' month: https://t.co/VAZnzIwEOs
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 2, 2024
I'll leave you with this:
NEW: ICE Boston arrested a Dominican man wanted for murder in the DR who fled to the U.S. in 2021, when he crossed illegally as a “gotaway”, then went on to be arrested for local crimes in Massachusetts, including fentanyl trafficking & strangulation.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 2, 2024
ICE arrested him near his… pic.twitter.com/L1tKbKydSa
“This unlawfully present Dominican national fled his home country to avoid a murder trial,” said ICE Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons. “He made his way to Massachusetts and has been repeatedly apprehended by local authorities and charged with crimes of violence and drug crimes. ERO Boston will not allow the world’s offenders to take refuge in our communities.”
This man, a got-away, is wanted for murder in his home country. He traveled to a 'santuary' jurisdiction, where he was arrested and charged with various crimes, on multiple occasions. Thanks to the "progressive" policies there, Massachsetts authories were barred from cooperating with ICE to apprehend and remove this threat to the community. ICE ended up nabbing him anyway, no thanks to 'sanctuary' policies. So much "progress."
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