By Mark Green for RealClearPolitics
Ever since early 2021, Americans have watched as illegal aliens have flooded across the Southwest border unimpeded. They have read with horror the accounts of innocent Americans victimized by those here unlawfully. They have seen family and friends die after being poisoned by fentanyl coming across the border. And the Biden-Harris administration has largely done nothing.
Yet now, following a few months of somewhat-reduced numbers of apprehensions between ports of entry along the Southwest border, the Biden-Harris administration is taking a victory lap. Such premature celebration, however, ignores the reality of the continuing nature of this crisis.
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Before explaining why, Americans must understand that even if not one more inadmissible alien crossed our borders for the remainder of Biden and Harris’ term, the millions they have already allowed into our country have done damage that will take decades to remedy. For many families, like those of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray, the damage can never be undone.
But if Biden and Harris want to talk about numbers, the president and his “border czar” will find no exoneration. On their watch, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded more than 10 million encounters nationwide, plus another two million known “gotaways” who have crossed our borders uncaught.
Many on the left like to appeal to the history of Ellis Island as an excuse for mass immigration – despite the fact that these individuals arrived in accordance with then-existing law. However, the number of people who came through Ellis Island was also roughly 12 million – in the 62 years between 1892 and 1954.
The number of inadmissible aliens who have been encountered at our borders or crossed uncaught since the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 is unprecedented. Claiming victory now due to temporarily reduced border crossings displays a willful ignorance of the nature of this ongoing crisis, because these numbers alone do not tell the full story of what Americans are experiencing.
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First, there are the continuing financial impacts. As of mid-June 2024, more than 205,000 illegal aliens had arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022. Mayor Eric Adams has declared that these arrivals and the resultant costs “will destroy New York City.” Small towns will also be struggling for years with the consequences of unchecked crossings. Springfield, Ohio, home to 60,000 people, has seen roughly 20,000 Haitians arrive since the crisis began, putting major strain on housing and other services. Whitewater, Wisconsin, a town of just 15,000 people, has been overwhelmed by the arrival of 1,000 illegal aliens “often lacking basic English skills.” According to one official in Sanford, Maine last year, “We’re tapped. … We’ve been overrun,” after costs to care for illegal aliens tripled.
DHS has reported that more than 80% of illegal aliens who are “neither expelled or repatriated directly by CBP nor continuously detained by ICE” remain in the United States years later. These communities, and thousands more like them, are going to be dealing with these costs for years.
Second, consider the ongoing public safety implications of what’s happening at the Southwest border. Border Patrol arrests of illegal aliens with criminal histories since FY2021 have more than doubled from FY2017-2020. Worse, criminals and individuals with possible ties to terrorism have been, and continue to be, released into the interior. In fact, news recently broke that the Biden-Harris administration actually released into the interior 99 individuals whom they knew were on the terrorist watchlist. According to one DHS source, ICE officials have been “discouraged from deporting even illegal immigrants who had final deportation orders and were linked to gangs.” Former ICE Field Director John Fabbricatore has said, “I was being forced to release people that should not have been allowed on the street.”
How many other threats to our safety and security have likewise been unwittingly released or entered as gotaways? How many more, who either did not commit crimes in their home country or were never caught, will do so for the first time against American victims?
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Finally, despite a recent decrease in illegal crossings between ports of entry, encounters of inadmissible aliens at ports of entry are at record highs, in large part because the administration has devised numerous, unlawful mass-parole programs encouraging them to enter this way. Consider that in February 2021, Biden and Harris’ first full month in office, CBP recorded just 17,744 encounters at ports nationwide. By July 2024, that number was 110,615. Encouraging would-be border crossers to cross at ports of entry certainly cuts down on the embarrassing optics of overwhelmed Border Patrol agents and facilities, but ultimately leads to the same result – inadmissible aliens being released into the interior. And now, one of these mass-parole programs has been temporarily shut down due to massive fraud.
This border crisis is not over – not by a long shot. It is time for Congress, and the American people, to say enough is enough.
Rep. Mark E. Green, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, represents Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.