I hate to say it, and I have long resisted saying it, but facts don’t lie and I have to conclude that the explosion of illegal and faux migrants pouring across our southern border is the deliberate, political policy of President Joe Biden.
Caught, and ready for release, at southern border (Photo: ABC News)
I find only two explanations for his Open Border policy.
1- It is self-destructive sympathy for poor people who want a better life, but who just won’t take a number and wait their turn to arrive legally as millions and millions have done for more than 100 years.
2- It is a deliberate policy to “brown” America, as progressives gleefully call it, and, in the next decade or two, create a super majority of Democrats. To wish for a “brown” America is philosophically as racist as hoping for a “white” America. This is an expression of Woke “blame whitey” culture.
Let’s take a look at No. 2, which is a long-held talking point on the Right.
It has gained traction only now, under the Biden presidency, because under the last Democratic President, Barack Obama, the “encounters” at the border fell dramatically as deportations skyrocketed.
So this is a Biden problem, because in a fit of virtue signaling, almost his first act as President was to reverse the successful border control policies of Donald J. Trump and Obama.. It was a blind act of political revenge, and a desire to undo almost everything his predecessor had done, just as Trump tried to do with most of what Obama accomplished.
This is not how a democracy should work, but it becomes almost inevitable with a country that is pretty much split down the middle between Right and Left.
The civil war has arrived, and while the fireworks were prepared before him, Trump lit the fuse of primarily white grievance in this country. I say “primarily” because he has attracted growing numbers of Hispanics and Black African-American males, who seem to be taking up his dare of, “What do you have to lose?”
There has been a shift in what is happening on the southern border in the two decades I have been writing about illegal immigration.
Back then, it was largely from Mexico, and it was all people sneaking across the border, and then melting into the interior, to “live in the shadows,” as the cliche goes. Along with the border jumpers, there was the large number of people who arrived legally, but overstayed their visas.
It is different today. Customs and Border Patrol counts people from 160 countries coming across the border, and for the first time arrivals from South America (thanks to turmoil in Venezuela) outnumber those from Central America.
It is different, too, in that majority don’t sneak across the border, the so-called getaways, which number an estimated 1.6 million since Biden took office.
That is in addition to the 2 million who “surrendered” to fraudulently claim asylum.
These people are processed and admitted to the U.S. This is the so-called “catch and release” policy. This is Open Borders.
I say “fraudulent” because they, and their cartel handlers, know the law better than you and are taking advantage of a loophole that says anyone claiming asylum is entitled to a hearing before a judge. The system is so overwhelmed that they may not get a hearing for five years.
There are five basic categories of asylum, all based on a well-grounded fear of personal persecution. Crime, climate change, and poverty are not among them. The migrants know this, but come anyway figuring they will not get deported.
Under Trump, they had to wait in Mexico.
Under Biden, they get to wait in Michigan, or anywhere else they want to go, transported at government — taxpayer — expense.
The vast majority of the flood that is set to “destroy” New York City, according to Mayor Eric Adams, was sent by the federal government, not by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He sent only a few thousands of the 60,000 being housed, clothed, and fed by New York City, thanks to its ill-advised and virtue-signalling Sanctuary City status.
It recalls a statement of Colin Powell, regarding the invasion of Iraq: “You break it, you own it.”
NYC broke immigration law and now owns the migrants.
Adams wants to stick this all on Biden, who deserves a big share of the blame, but Biden wouldn’t have sent immigrants to Gotham if it were not a “sanctuary.”
Just the other day Biden gave the green light for almost half a million Venezuelans to get work permits. Without doubt, that will be a magnet for more Venezuelans to arrive.
“Why not give them a work permit?” some ask. Without it, they will be wards of the state.
That is correct, but the work permit is the wrong solution.
The right solution is to not welcome them in the first place. Let them apply for asylum from their home country, or the first safe country they encounter. The right solution, for the U.S., is to make them wait for their hearing elsewhere. That alone will end the flood.
Instead, we have that certifiable idiot DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisting the border is “closed,” while Biden keeps pouring gasoline on the fire.
He is keeping it up even as 55% of Americans want him to make it harder for people with questionable status to cross. He must be figuring he’ll take the short-term hit in exchange for the longer political gain. I am surprised that only 55% of Americans feel there is a big problem. Most of the rest of them are the under-informed Americans who don’t ever watch newscasts or read newspapers.
America admits about a million legal immigrants each year. They are all vetted.
Biden is admitting twice that number each year, and none are vetted.
Not for disease, not for radical beliefs, nothing.
That’s something you should be losing sleep over.
But not Biden. He lives in a secure environment and won’t be in danger because of his Open Borders.
I am an immigration lawyer. Ive been practicing for as long as Stu has been writing about it. From a factual perspective everything he says is correct, including the actions of Biden and the incompetence of Mayorkas. And I do not blame the immigrants. If you can use a broken system to help protect yourself and your family, you are not human if you won’t use it. The solution is to fix the system so that asylum seekers who are threatened by the Taliban and not by poverty don’t have to wait a decade for their cases to be resolved.
I think Taliban can fit under personal persecution language. Poverty does not. Gallup reports 157 million people would come here if they could. Admitting them would be suicide. That is why we need an orderly process, which now is overwhelming nonwhite.
Biden told illegal immigrants to surge across the border before he was even elected. Everyone with common sense knew we would be overwhelmed. You get what you vote for. The country is being destroyed by the left wing democrats and the dishonest media who fail to inform the people about what’s going on.
He did make remarks to the effect that the U.S. welcomes immigrants. He forgot to specify LEGAL immigrants.
He forgot. On purpose.
Evil, or dumb. Your choice.
In my heart, I’d say it was with malice and forethought. Seems to me, Stu, that immediately upon being sworn in as Commander and Chief, he ran back to the White House (slightly exaggerated), closed the pipeline and opened the border. At the time, it seemed to be quite spiteful. I say this respectfully. It’s merely an honest opinion.
Do we still have the bizarre and ill conceived Green Card Visa Lottery?
Started a while ago by dreamers in Congress to offer Green Cards to 50,000 residents from countries not normally seeking asylum in the USA? If you are not normally seeking to come to the USA for your own reasons, why would Congress encourage you to come here? How many of the 160 countries now sending illegal immigrants here are also on the Green Card list?
Many of the applicants heard a rumor that they would be paid $1 million in cash upon entering the USA, and that rumor appears to be a big motivation to apply. 50,000 people who then bring their families, so the number may end up being 2, 3 or 4 times the 50,000.
Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing in our Federal Gov.?
I can’t answer your question, and it is not relevant to this subject — people arriving with NO documents.
It’s about time, now thank all our family, friends, co-workers and neighbors for voting against a persons personality. I do laugh in amazement when I hear things stated as “Biden’s policy” about this and that. Biden is a puppet and a teleprompter reader, he has no ability to develop policies on his own. BHO and his team (and supporter) are still running the country and delivering on his promise to “Materially transform” the country. Of course he was a great orator, but very limited experience-basically a Community Organizer in Chicago and you don’t get those jobs out of the newspaper. Sad but true, at all levels, our society suffers from corrupt and agenda driven leadership, the worst IMO are those w an agenda to materially transform society and our country. Wake up.
If Biden is a puppet, who is Geppetto? Please name him/her/them.
He said “BHO” which is quite humorous, since border-crossings went way down, and deportations way up under Obama. Why did he wait until he was out of office to execute his nefarious plan?
Not sure who you are referencing, but I have reported several times deportations skyrocketed under Obama, Trump continued the trend, and Biden reversed us, given us the worst numbers EVER. I D
don’t kniw how to post the chart on this platform.
Exactly. Dan was saying that Obama was Gepetto and that makes no sense with respect to the border.
It’s probably less the “browning” of America than changing the culture. Many of the immigrants come from more socialistic countries where the government has a much larger role in controlling the lives of the population.
The thing the Dems don’t get is that the ones from Latin countries are church-going social conservatives who may not like Dems’ ideas. They are not a “for sure” Democratic vote.
Your comment presupposes that those on the other side of the immigration question are primarily interested in stacking the electorate in their favor, as opposed to a good faith policy or moral position, and that if they knew these folks were likely to not agree with them politically, they would abandon those positions.
Obviously the politicians (and their consultants) do know this fact. I note that the Venezuelans, in particular, are strongly anti-socialist, as it is socialist authoritarianism they have fled. “Venezuelan-Americans seem to have voted for Trump by a 2-1 margin in November and the most Venezuelan precinct in the country swung towards the GOP by a record 44 points.” https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2021/03/09/venezuelans-are-proof-that-immigrants-arent-gops-enemies-commentary/
So, would it be fair to say that the “thing the anti-immigrant right-wingers don’t get is that the ones from Latin countries are church-going social conservatives who have proven that they will vote for conservatives?”
It seems evident to me that neither side of this debate is motivated by some expected long-term effect on the composition of the electorate–else they’d be on opposite sides of the question. Pandering to existing constituencies is far more likely.
Not sure which comment you mean, but I am being forced to suspect political advantage is what Biden and the Dems are up to. If not that, why their devotion to Open Borders? How is that good fod America. [Spoiler alert: It is not.]
In fact, I speculated somewhere that — as your link shows – Dems may be surprised because Hispanics tend to be religious and socially conservative. IF progressives are counting on their votes, they may be wrong, but they are wrong about a lot.
😏
I think you may be overstating Biden’s intent regarding the border. When you posted, I didn’t have time to look up the stuff I vaguely knew, but here are a few points.
1. He kept Title 42 in place long after its expiration date (i.e. end of Covid emergency) and actually expanded it for a while before ending it.
2. He enacted a rule similar to Trump’s asylum ban which was struck down, adding some exceptions to try to distinguish it from Trump’s ban on asylum for illegal border-crossers who passed through a third country on their way. That is, instead of an absolute bar, illegal border-crossers would have a “legal presumption” against their right to asylum. This didn’t save it. But during its short duration before it, too, was struck down, “The data contradicts conservative attacks on the rule for being too lenient. Less than 1 in 10 people subject to the rule have been able to rebut its presumption against asylum eligibility.” More generally, it also reduced illegal crossings. (Your graph stop at 2021. This was enacted in 2022). The left attacked it as “Recycling Trump’s asylum bans” (e.g. https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/recycling-trumps-asylum-bans-expanding-title-42-how-bidens-new-policies-threaten)
3. “The Biden administration plans to direct millions of dollars in foreign aid to help Panama deport more migrants — intended to stop people long before they reach the U.S.-Mexico border” https://www.axios.com/2023/09/29/biden-border-panama-foreign-aid-deportations
Trump had tried a similar plan, which had been blocked by Sen. Menendez; he’d also been blocking Biden’s attempt, but since he has been removed from his chairmanship of Foreign Relations because of his indictment, the plan will now go forward.
So, while Biden’s efforts at the border may have been ineffectual, and ending “remain in Mexico” an error, I don’t think one can go so far as to accuse him of wanting open borders. He’s basically tried to carry on Trump’s border policies with that one exception. (Mexico never liked it, and has vowed to never agree to it again.) And certainly the pro-migrant folks are not happy with him which ought to count for something
Tom, I deeply respect the research you do, but I think you overthink this issue.
Since I don’t know how to post image here, I am putting up a new post by 1 p.m. Tuesday to answer you.
P.S. Because of either the length of your posts, or because of the links, they do not post automatically, as administrator, I have to approve them and don’t always see them promptly. But I will always approve them.
As I’ve said, Congress is to blame for the last four decades of its own inactivity on immigration. Secondly, how would you propose sending migrants back to a country with which we have no diplomatic relations? I think your blame is partially misplaced and seems to ignore an important point relative to the surge of Venezuelan migrants. Is it a problem? Absolutely. But it will take a coordinated and bipartisan effort from Congress to fix it. Oh, I forgot, we don’t do bipartisanship anymore.
Oh, once they are here, there is little chance of deporting them, and they KNOW it. That’s why, as I mentioned, the so-called asylum seekers must be kept OUT. Trump’s “wait in Mexico” policy did that and illegal crossings fell to a record low, as you can see in the chart.
We are getting many dangerous criminals cross the border into our country. Joe Biden is suffering from dementia and his strings are being manipulated. Joe running for a second term is a joke especially with the giggling VP Harris waiting to take over. If Joe doesn’t step down before the election I think Harris will be replaced with another VP candidate that the Democratic Party approves of. So if Joe would win (God help us all) and finally steps down their guy will be President. Just my thoughts
I have neen looking at this more as invasion, than immigration. Nothing legal or good seems to be in the near or far future.
I would not argue with “invasion.”
It is perfectly clear to me: the Left wants to destroy the USA and rebuild it into a ‘socialist’ paradise — with them in charge. As part of this devious plan, the Left has already destroyed the meaning of the word ‘family,’ created innumerable variations on male and female, made the idea of killing an unborn child akin to having a tooth pulled, told school leaders to keep secrets about the students from their parents, and on and on. Read “The 45 Goals of the Communist Party” (from the Congressional Record January 1963) and all of the preceding will become clear. If anyone cares any more.
You give the Left far too much credit–credulous and ideological, sure. Devious, not so much. They are pretty up front and vocal about what they want.
And heh, “The 45 Goals”–yeah it was read into the Congressional Record from the book “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen, published by the John Birch Society. It’s a great source if you believe, like they did, that that “Dwight Eisenhower is a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy” along with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, CIA director Allen Dulles, as well as numerous other senior members of the Eisenhower administration.
While Skousen was on the John Birch Society speaker’s bureau and appeared on the cover of its magazine, he had his own, apparently further right organization. A 1962 FBI memo described Skousen as affiliated with an “extreme right-wing” group which was promoting “anticommunism for obvious financial purposes.” A grifter. That didn’t stop Skousen’s supporters from burning crosses on the lawn of one his political enemies. Obviously you’ve been surfing some of the wackier parts of the internet (I do too!), and it is obvious why your source chose to cite the official-sounding “Congressional Record” (actually its in an Appendix to the record) instead of the actual wacky conspiracy theorist who came up with the list. (Any individual congressman can put anything in the record, and they do!)
Based on this list of commie goals, I’d worry about whether Trump, too is a conscious agent of the communist conspiracy. For instance, #35. “Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.” And then there’s #40. “Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.” Also # 42. “Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition.” And of course, #14. “Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office” which has currently been cut off as a sanction by Biden. Then there is the NUMBER ONE goal of communism which Trump has been promoting: ” 1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.”
My favorite part of the commie conspiracy, though, has got to be #s 22 & 23. “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms” and “to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.” All my life I’ve just said stuff like “that art is awful” or “that’s ugly” instead of “Goddamn Commies!” Now I know better. Bad taste and bad art is communism. Devious indeed–a takeover by bad aesthetics. Those sneaky bastards.
Vince, there are plenty of rational objections to the various policies the Left wants to enact. (I, for one, will join wholeheartedly in the fight against bad art!) But here is a guy who just lists policies he doesn’t like and attributes them to commies. Heck, he wrote a pamphlet about how any criticism of the John Birch Society was evidence “incipient” communism. Hey, if you want to roll back no-fault divorce, feel free to make that argument on its merits, but claiming it is bad because it is part of the communist agenda isn’t particularly persuasive. When the left quotes Stalin or Mao to say what is wrong with this country, I’m not persuaded, ditto when folks rely on guys like this.
As for abortion, I’d interested in your thoughts regarding Trump throwing the pro-life movement under the bus, calling the 6-week ban in Florida “horrible” and promising to “negotiate with the Democrats” regarding appropriate limitations on abortion, and refusing to endorse even the proposed GOP 15-week national ban on abortion.
I never said all of the 45 goals were of equal import. But your sleight of hand reference to some of the sillier goals is shameless. For example, you ignore goal 15: “Capture one or both of the political parties of the USA.” I submit the Left has been captured. Or number 17: “Get control of the schools.” Or number 20: “Infiltrate the press…get control of editorial writing…” Or number 21: “Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures”; And one of the goals you mocked (goal 22) says “Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression.” You chose to focus on the silly example of ugly public statues. Back to the list: how about number 24: “Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them ‘censorship’ and a violation of free speech and free press.” Here’s one that has already happened, Goal 40: “Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.” And Goal 41, which is happening with the assistance of the useful idiots in the teachers’ unions: “Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents…” Remember, these goals were promulgated some 60 years ago; God only knows what the list would look like if the lunacy of the WOKE ideology were known back then. The only “GOOD” thing to come out of what the USA is doing to itself is there is no longer a need to worry about a nuclear war. There is no longer a need for a nuclear war as the USA is committing suicide.
Hey, you’re the one who told me to read the “45 Goals” and it made me laugh. Sorry. My point was that these goals were never “promulgated” by commies or anybody remotely credible. There was no congressional finding or investigation that somehow “uncovered” these supposed goals.
They were made up by a conspiracy nut who thought anybody who made bad art was a commie. Is this the kind of guy you want to cite as an authority? I went and dug up a bit more on the guy. Here’s a bit of criticism I found in his FBI file (that echoes my observation): “The technique is to define anything which disagrees with Skousen’s ultraconservative opinions as ‘Communism, Socialism and Subversion’…” “To Skousen ‘socialist writers’ are writers who find anything wrong with American policies and leaders prior to 1932 or anything right about them since the advent of the New Dealers.” [This stuff wasn’t written by FBI, but it ended up in his file from a book review by a professor the FBI determined to be “anticommunist” whose issue with Skousen was a lack of a “scholarly approach.” In fact the writer and Skousen were friendly. Oh, for the time when people could profoundly disagree politically and still be friends]
And, by the way, his thesis was that the commies had already taken over the schools since the 1930s! Obviously, both of us, Stu, and all the commenters here are now communists. When I was a kid, and I talked with my mom about what the teachers had said, half the time she’d say it was nonsense. I asked her why my text book called the Civil War “The War Between the States” and she explained that the textbook publishers couldn’t sell their books in southern states if it was called it the “Civil War” (she’d been a proofreader for a textbook publisher). My experience is that parents trump teachers every time. As for schools not keeping parents informed, the 6th Circuit just ruled that they gotta. Don’t Panic! I’m for local control of schools, which is why I’m against DeSantis’s state-wide mandates.
As for discrediting the family, mine is fine, how’s yours? I can’t remember woke folk promoting porn, in fact feminists have long argued it is a form sex discrimination. The most prominent promoters of divorce and promiscuity seem to be “get me a newer model” Trump and his flings with his porn star and playboy centerfold, and Matt Gaetz’s reported sex and drug parties. Me, I’ll stick with the constitution, and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of it–that’s the deal we make as citizens.
I also think you’re wrong about the “Left”–every progressive I know said “Anybody but Biden.” (It’s likely Trump would’ve made me pull the lever for Bernie, but I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision.) Part of Biden’s disapproval rating is from progressives, just as Obama’s was. (They hated his aggressive drone war against terrorism, and failure to close Gitmo–“I give him a C-” said one them to me).
And national suicide, hardly. Am I the only one left who thinks this is the greatest country in the world? The republic will survive. It’s our Constitution and democracy that make this country great. If we stick with it, we’ll be fine–not that we won’t have problems along the way. We ended slavery, got through the depression, won WWII, and won the Cold War–though according to your “45 Goals” guy, we’d already lost it and had been pretty much taken over by the commies by 1962. His assessment applied to those times, is no better when applied to ours. Cultural squabbles and educational controversies are not going to end us. Every era has its problems, but we’ve overcome far worse. Don’t lose faith in America.
The problem is there is no a la carte way of selecting a president.
Yes, Biden has foisted a catastrophe on us with his insane immigration policies. But if you vote republiclown, you’re not just voting for tougher border protection, but for the Constitution-shredding christo-fascist caliphate they want to ram up our asses. And that cannot be allowed under any circumstances.
Trump really scares you, doesn’t he? More than Sleepy Joe and his dementia? And his open borders agenda?
Vince, what scares me the most is what that orange-skinned POS said about getting rid of our Constitution.
Considering Trump just said that former Chief of Staff General Milley and Comcast are somehow guilty of “Treason”–yeah, I’ll take the other candidate, whoever it might be. Then there’s the part where he promises to criminally prosecute all his political enemies. His signature political promise to date: revenge on anybody who disagrees with him.
As for the “sleepy” part, Trump recently said Biden will somehow get us into “World War II”–time travel?–and that Jeb Bush invaded Iraq. It seems to me he is well down that slippery slope. Oh, and then’s there the thing where he tried to illegally stay in the office when he knew he’d lost the election. (This is the guy accusing people of treason?) He was just found guilty of routinely committing business fraud for years, but, no biggie, he can appeal that civil case along with any felony convictions that occur.
If none of that had happened, I might consider the fact that he would sell out Ukraine to Putin, withdraw from NATO, and randomly stab friends and allies in the back, the way he did the Kurds, after he has a pleasant phone conversation with some dictator who pays him a compliment. Or I might consider the pardons he handed out to his rich friends and political allies (I swore I’d never vote for Hillary after the pardons the Clintons handed out at the end of Bill’s term, e.g. Marc Rich–you can imagine how I felt about Trump’s)–not to mention his promise to pardon the Jan 6 rioters. All in all, I can’t see how anyone with any respect for the rule of law can vote for Trump.
The border policy can be fixed by Congress and/or the pressure of public opinion. Trump can’t be. I, like many others, had hoped and prayed that he would grow into the office. He has proven that to be impossible.
Tom A, thank you for your well thought out and detailed post. What is a shame is how many people do not care about any of that, nor do they care about his other issues which you did not mention.
The planted axiom is that anyone who is AGAINST Biden [and by extension, the Left] is, therefore FOR Trump. I have consistently said that it is shameful that a nation of more than 300 million people seems to come up with the sorriest excuses for leaders. A pox on both their houses.
In one sense, I’m with you, Vince. But, as they say, it is what it is. You got any names for better? We have to make choices. As some of my GOP friends said in 2016 to explain their vote for Trump “The choice is binary.” I said, “Back at you.” I suspect you and I will end up on opposite sides for the next one, but we’ll both be wishing for better.
I just read that Senator Dianne Feinstein has died at 90 years old. May she Rest in Peace.
Amen. Never saw a U-Haul behind a hearse.
Please explain what that is supposed to mean Vince.
Vince, I do know what it means. What I meant to ask you is how does this apply to Senator Dianne Feinstein?