The US border crisis is an absolute tragedy any way you look at it – from the desperate migrants who risk life, limb and all their possessions to make the dangerous trip to America, to the exhausted US border control agents assigned to apprehend them, to the citizens of border towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California who have seen their cities decimated.
Think about it. If you are a citizen of a country like Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela, Peru, Haiti, Mexico or dozens of others, your living conditions must be extremely bad for you to risk everything you have – including your life – to make the dangerous trip to the US, much of which you will have to make on foot most likely.
Yet the US Border Patrol reported earlier this month that the number of illegal migrants entering the US hit a new record high in 2022, with migrant encounters of over 250,000 in December alone – the highest month ever. Unfortunately, the Biden administration is doing little to nothing to address this crisis, and many argue it is only making it worse.
There were nearly 2.4 million migrant arrests at the nation’s southwestern border in fiscal year 2022, which ended September 30 – the highest number ever recorded, according to the US Border Patrol.
Migration into the United States through the Mexico–US border started to surge in late 2020, when it looked increasingly likely that Joe Biden would be our next president, reaching a record number of 1.73 million migrant encounters in 2021.
The migrants, who are mostly of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras citizenship, are reported to be escaping economic hardship, gang violence, murder, sexual assault and environmental disaster in their home countries to seek asylum in the US.
Unlike the demographic of migrants in the preceding years, an increasing proportion of current migrants arriving at the Mexico–US border are children, most of whom are unaccompanied children. How sad is that? Policies related to the care and custody of such children have been controversial to say the least.
The agents of the US Border Patrol (USBP), a federal law enforcement agency, are tasked with deterring, detecting and apprehending any person crossing into the US illegally at any point not designated as a port of entry by the US Attorney General. Additionally, agents interdict and seize contraband smuggled into the US through non-ports of entry. So, USBP agents are both immigration and customs officials.
Being one of the world’s most lethal land borders, hundreds of migrants die each year along the Mexico–US border while attempting to cross into the US illegally. In 2014, the Obama administration declared a crisis at the border due to a large influx of unaccompanied minors and women making their way through checkpoints. But little was done to stop it.
As a result, in September 2019, the US immigration court faced over one million waiting for their cases to be heard, matching the highest backlog seen in the US.
The Trump administration tried to stop migrants from getting into the US at all, requiring them to take a number at the border and to wait in Mexico until they were called for a chance to have their asylum cases heard. But President Biden reversed that policy as soon as he took office. Now it’s a free-for-all again.
So, what is our government doing about it? Not much. In March 2021, amid the continued rise in illegals entering the US from Mexico, Biden told migrants: “Don’t come over.” He said the US was arranging a plan for migrants to “apply for asylum in place,” without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults “are being sent back.” In reality, nothing substantive was done.
President Biden actually tried to get rid of Trump’s “Title 42” policy, which allowed for quick deportations, last year but faced stiff opposition, not only from Republicans but some in his own party. So, he recently decided to back off. But while Title 42 remains legally in place, the number of illegal immigrations continues to rise. As noted above, there were a record 2.4 million migrant arrests at the nation’s southwestern border in fiscal 2022, according to US Border Patrol data. More recent reports indicate it is getting even worse.
At some point, this has to stop. These people are taking jobs from American workers, and many of our border cities and towns look like refugee camps. Sadly, many Americans are not aware of this because the mainstream media doesn’t report it. Hopefully, this will be a major issue in the next presidential election, but that is not until November 2024. And the next president will not take office for two more years.
At least my clients and readers know about it and will know what to do. I’ll leave it there for today.
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