Suddenly, all anybody on the left is worried about is the situation at the Southern border. And they should be, but they are a little late to the conversation. In fact in recent years, anytime somebody even tried to discuss the border, the left treated them like a joke.
But it is not just the left that is to blame for the crisis. GOP lawmakers are at fault, too. While conservative voters have been worried about illegal immigration for decades, President George W. Bush failed to secure the border. Then during President Obama's term, Democrats criticized him as being too tough with his deportations but Republicans lamented that he was too weak. In the first two years of President Trump's administration, the GOP-controlled Congress could have passed meaningful legislation to fix the crisis. Today, President Trump can still legally enact various executive orders to solve the problem, but has not.
While all Democratic and Republican presidents have attempted to secure the American border and failed, the one key consistency during the 21st century has been the far left's ignorance of the issue and the media underplaying it. But now, the story is driving the news cycle and it seems that leftists have awoken to the reality facing the country. So, what changed and what will it take to solve the crisis?
About five months ago, the Democratic Party leadership was saying that the immigration challenge was a manufactured crisis created by President Donald J.Trump. His warnings of illegal aliens were done simply to rev up his base and stoke racial animosity. The mainstream media agreed with this and promoted these talking points. Most memorably, CNN's Jim Acosta stuck his goofy sunglasses donned face up to the border fence to apparently show that it was rather peaceful down there.
I wrote this piece in mid 2016 detailing migrant deaths along our border. Trump wasn’t President then, Obama was. https://t.co/5np9lpsELo
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) June 26, 2019
But now that the immigration detention centers are full and the 2020 presidential campaign is kicking it into high gear, leftists across the country are blaming the current president for the influx of illegal immigrants. He has caused the tragedies that come with the mass migration, they assert. The main image for this false narrative is truly haunting -- a father and daughter facedown, dead in a river after attempting to enter the United States.
A shocking image of a drowned man and his daughter underscores the crisis at the US-Mexico border https://t.co/nClIAsjKTB pic.twitter.com/Cajoo80yCM
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 26, 2019
It truly is tragic, but leftists and the Democratic Party fail to hold the moral high ground here.
For years, conservative media has covered the chaos at the border. Since at least 2014, the coverage has ranged from the cruel human smuggling operation to the drug cartels influence and the subsequent crimes often committed by illegal aliens who take advantage of the United States immigration policy. However, during that time, conservatives were mocked for their concerns.
Breitbart's Brandon Darby is perhaps the foremost media expert in this field, having reported on the situation for the better half of the last decade. He has detailed the sex abuse, violent crimes, and deaths ravaged upon these migrants by drug cartels and other nefarious actors.
After five years, it’s great to see so many journalists and Democrats finally outraged about migrant children in crowded detention facilities.
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) June 24, 2019
Correct. Even for the past 9-10 years. I first started focusing on the border when I was working undercover busting sex traffickers and running a shelter for sex trafficking victims—many of whom were migrants preparing to testify against cartel-connected traffickers. https://t.co/Ui6PD2o68X
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) June 25, 2019
I realized that lower level sex traffickers were getting prosecuted, but most of them worked for people in Mexico who were getting away with it. I decided to go after the top guys — thus Breitbart’s border project began... morphing into our cartel project.
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) June 25, 2019
Well, according to Darby, the left's sudden jolt of concern is due to the fact that many mainstream media outlets did not cover the story until recently. This led most Democratic officials and voters to not even be aware of the issue. Because of this, it appears to those folks as if these horrible events literally started overnight under President Trump.
There may be fake outrage in politicians, but I don’t think most outraged Dems are being fake. I think US media outlets largely failed to cover border issues until now so most Dems think the realities are new. The Dems weren’t reading Breitbart apparently. https://t.co/Jc7fby5Hzw
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) June 25, 2019
In 2015, then writing for the Daily Caller as an intern, I detailed how the Government Accountability Office found that President Barack Obama's immigration policy was confusing Central American families into thinking that amnesty and citizenship were an option if they snuck into the country. Yet, this report received very little mainstream coverage.
It was released in the summer of 2015 a year after the border was being massively infiltrated by Central American families and unaccompanied children. During this time President Obama was trying to solve the issue, and actively telling illegal alien family's point blank -- "Do not send your children here."
However, there was only so much his words could do. His actions did not address the underlying issue of a virtually open border. Deportations skyrocketed under Obama, but the porous border issue was not solved. His fellow party members criticized him and acted as if there was no problem at all.
But the issue did not stop in 2015. It continued, but relatively few media outlets bothered to investigate what was happening. Breitbart's Darby, and others in right-leaning media did.
I wrote this piece in mid 2016 detailing migrant deaths along our border. Trump wasn’t President then, Obama was. https://t.co/5np9lpsELo
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) June 26, 2019
Darby even posted photos of dead migrants, but the left said this was more-or-less propaganda. Even just one month ago, his Twitter account was suspended for posting a dead body whose death was caused by illegal immigration. There was no outrage from Democratic leadership then.
Now, the photo of the dead father and daughter are being spread across the internet and the issue cannot be ignored at all and all anybody can do is discuss the topic.
But, it is one thing to talk about it and another to do something about. It seems the left's solution for the entire immigration mess is to have open borders. The blame, despite the facts, is placed on Trump. Republicans in Congress seem unwilling or unwanting to actually support President Trump's border wall. President Trump himself seems to ignore the tools at his immediate disposal as well.
The simple reality is that while America is a generous nation, and some of these migrants are genuinely fleeing oppression, the crisis is now at a catastrophic size that taxpayers cannot foot the bill for these people anymore. There are hundreds of thousands coming in each month and American authorities cannot keep up with the surge. But the leftist solution is to not even bother stopping the deluge. This is the wrong approach. On the other hand, the GOP has not been as tough on solving the problem as they have led voters to believe.
It is encouraging the left is aware of the worrying mess down at the border, but they should admit that it did not begin under President Trump. In fact, it is one of the key reasons President Trump won in 2016. He seemed to be the only candidate taking the problem seriously enough to stop illegal immigration once and for all.
On Wednesday, Congress passed the emergency funding of $4.5 billion to help with humanitarian aid for the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. That is great, but it is a short term fix. What those on both the left and right who are concerned about this issue need to understand is that unless the United States takes aggressive action now to close the border and promote legal immigration, the issue is not going to stop under President Trump either.
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