Biden's Pick for Attorney General Won't Say if Illegal Immigration Should Remain a Crime

Katie Pavlich | February 22, 2021 6:00 PM

President Biden's nominee to be the next Attorney General, Judge Merrick Garland, failed to state whether crossing into the United States without permission should continue to be a crime during the first day of his confirmation hearing.

HAWLEY: "Do you believe that illegal entry at America's border should remain a crime?"

GARLAND: “I, I’m uh uh mm I uh uh...I haven’t thought about that. I, uh uh I uh uh.”

pic.twitter.com/bWc67ZTaTn
— Mike Hahn (@mikehahn_) February 22, 2021

But while Garland can't answer the basic question, the consequences of President Biden's recent actions to embolden illegal immigration are unfolding along the southern border with Mexico.

At official ports of entry, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents are seeing an increase in asylum claims, many from individuals who do not qualify.

One of the migrants I spoke to cited Biden’s no deportations during his first 100 days campaign promise as a reason for her hope of getting into the US.

There was a lot of confusion as migrants say no one told them anything on the changes to MPP.https://t.co/PC8qzPqwU0
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 22, 2021

Further, according to the Wall Street Journal the number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border is exploding.

Children have been crossing the border illegally in increasing numbers for the past few months after a lull, when the start of the pandemic and lockdowns across Latin America last spring briefly brought border crossings to historic lows. In January, 5,707 children arrived at the border alone, up from 4,855 the month before.
The child-shelter network run by the Department of Health and Human Services to house migrant children has reduced its capacity by 40%, and as of Friday, shelters were 93% full.
“They’ve seen very large growth in a very short period of time,” said Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, who oversaw the shelter network during the Obama administration. “The closer you get to 100% capacity, the harder the system is to manage.”