When, If Ever, is Enough, Enough?

It’s not your imagination, nor media hype; Biden’s Border Crisis is really, really bad, spiraling out of control, more and more in recent weeks.

• According to Customs and Border Protection, since President Biden took office there have been 7,298,400 encounters at the border, 2,475,600 in Fiscal Year 2023, and an alarming 961,500 already in the new fiscal year representing a pace that, if left unchecked, will exceed all previous.
• Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan illegal alien, previously apprehended but released, was charged with killing Laken Riley, an Athens, Georgia nursing student. The newly released affidavit alleges he disfigured her skull.
• Over 100,000 migrants have flooded New York City over the last year, due, we might add, to its own sanctuary policies. Out of sheer desperation, Mayor Adam’s administration is now planning to roll out a controversial no-bid $53 million contract with a New Jersey-based company to provide migrants with prepaid credit cards at taxpayer expense.
• After a taxpayer-funded migrant center in San Diego ran out of money, 1,500 migrants were released onto the street. Cameras captured one wearing a “F***you all” tee shirt, stoking local outrage.

And on and on it goes, day after day. Justifiably, immigration is now the top issue for voters. Monmouth reports six in ten Americans “see immigration as a very serious issue” while new poll numbers from Gallup reveal an astounding escalation of concern: “Significantly more Americans cite immigration as the most important problem facing the U.S. (28%) than did a month ago (20%).

That deep concern is fueling voter frustration that the White House won’t act. After all, Americans depend on presidents to decisively tackle challenges posed by major events that adversely impact health, economics, personal safety, national security, and the general welfare of our nation…and the faster the better. Pointedly, on October 14, 1962, President Kennedy confirmed that the Soviet Union was amassing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Then, only eight days later, Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of the island which, while arguably a high-stakes gamble, was an extraordinarily swift response that resolved a crisis.

More broadly, as unforeseen events emerged, American presidents have generally responded to the public will by using their office to win wars, end them, quell civil unrests, combat epidemics — more recently a pandemic — and otherwise expediently address problems while advancing prosperity, peace, and upholding our constitutional rule of law.

But here’s the big difference between those responsive efforts of the past and Biden’s Border Crisis of the present: Most presidents had problems involuntarily thrust upon them which they dealt with, and at least tried to fix, whereas Biden has deliberately manufactured a crisis and adamantly refuses to fix it. There is simply no precedent for this in American presidential history.

In response, the left has been trying to create the reality that Biden has no culpability. The idea that President Biden inherited an immigration system in tatters has been a standard Democrat talking point in Congress for some time despite official government data showing massive increases of encounters since 2021. Blaming Republicans is another favorite diversionary tactic, one they used recently when the Senate’s so-called “Border Security Agreement” was rejected.  As FAIR reported, that legislation would have actually codified the acceptance of staggering levels of illegal immigration that exceed the number of legal immigrants America admits each year.

And of course, when all else fails to convince Americans that Biden has no responsibility for the current mess, the left wrings its hands and parrots its thread-worn demand that the problem is “we don’t have comprehensive immigration reform.”  In fact, the president has all the authority he needs to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws, but has steadfastly refused to exercise that authority. Instead, his stated objective of “comprehensive immigration reform” is really nothing more than a euphemism for mass amnesty, which of course would just fuel more illegal immigration.

For Americans — and especially families like those of Laken Riley, killed by illegal aliens — the border crisis has clearly reached an “enough is enough” stage, both in terms of tangible, tragic impacts, and farcical arguments from the left.

It’s time for Biden to man up, own it, and fix it by enforcing current laws.