The Migrant Surge Has Knocked The Sense Out Of Some New Mexicans
Confirming Americans’ darkest suspicions, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted last week that “100 percent” of adults illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are being released into the country.
Acting DHS SecretaryKevin McAleenan told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the BorderPatrol merely acts as a checkpoint for so-called “family units” heading north.
In the last week alone, nearly 8,000 border crossers andillegal aliens were released into the country, including those not evenrequesting asylum.
McAleenan said adult migrants are given work permitsallowing them to take American jobs while they await their immigration courthearings, oftentimes two years down the road.
Working or otherwise, the initial waves of migrants are inundating communities across the southwest. New Mexico is one of the hardest hit.
In Las Cruces, an hour north of the border city of El Paso,more than 6,500 migrants have been dropped off by the Border Patrol sincemid-April. Deming, a town of 14,000, received 2,400 migrants, sheltering up to700 at a time in the local fairgrounds.
At the capital in Santa Fe, Democratic Gov. Michelle LujanGrisham offered to pay bus fare to send sojourners on to Denver. She alsoannounced the state will offer grants to defray costs incurred by localgovernments.
“It is our duty as a state, in the absence of a comprehensive shift in strategy and personnel deployment on the part of the federal government, to accommodate and facilitate the needs of both these asylum seekers and the local communities where they are being released,” she wrote in a letter to Republican state lawmakers.
Lujan Grisham’s call to duty was a rich one. Earlier this year, the Democrat irresponsibly pulled National Guard troops back from the border and reposted a campaign video of her galloping through a thin wall of sheet rock in a mockery of President Trump’s call for a border barricade.
Some New Mexico counties don’t find the governor’s antics amusing and want nothing to do with illegal aliens. Local officials say the governor is only exacerbating the border chaos.
Sierra and Lincoln counties passed resolutions opposing anyrelocation of migrants to their rural communities. The moves followed a similarresolution by neighboring Otero County.
“As long as we continue to extend citizen benefits tounregistered aliens the flows will continue,” said Lincoln Commissioner TomStewart.
That logic apparently eludes the feckless Lujan Grisham asshe and lawmakers in Washington do nothing about circumstance that leave U.S.immigration officials with few options other than to dispense free passes toborder crashers and look the other way.