People from Across the Globe are Catching Flights to Cross the Border

The Biden border crisis rages on with no end in sight. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded 178,622 encounters with illegal aliens in April, up from 78,443 in January when President Biden took office. Most of these illegal aliens hail from the same region of the world — Central America. Particularly, they come from the northern triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Recently, the share of aliens apprehended from outside of the northern triangle has increased. Alarmingly, many of those apprehended are not even from the Americas.

CBP reports apprehending individuals in greater numbers from outside of Latin America as word spreads throughout the globe that the border is essentially wide open. Aliens from Europe, Asia, and Africa are among those apprehended in greater and growing numbers by CBP. The Washington Examiner reported that even some of the nomadic Roma people of eastern Europe have boarded planes to Central America, determined to cross the border and claim asylum on the basis of discrimination from European governments. Anna Giaritelli, the Washington Examiner reporter, wrote that:

Many of the [Roma] are flying into Mexico from Europe because Mexico does not require visitors to obtain a visa before entering the country. From Mexico, the migrants travel to the U.S.-Mexico border and make their way through the border river in south Texas, where Border Patrol agents on the U.S. side will take them into custody. People who make asylum claims will not be turned away at the border despite a public health order in effect that states all illegal crossers ought to be returned across the border.  

Roma do not have a national home and hail from mostly European nations, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. For centuries, the Roma people have been discriminated against and not welcomed by other European countries, sometimes prompting them to live on the road.

Separately, Reuters reported that CBP apprehended growing numbers of Romanians — a distinct ethnic group who make up the majority of Romania. However, the author seemingly used the terms Romanians and Roma interchangeably, despite the fact that Romanians and Roma are distinct ethnic groups.

This phenomenon is not new. Todd Bensman with the Center for Immigration Studies writes extensively on the topic of “extra-continental migrants.” In his reporting, Bensman has encountered aliens crossing the border from Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Iran. He also wrote a book about this phenomenon and its connection to the War on Terror titled America’s Covert Border War: The Untold Story of the Nation’s Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration.

The growth of apprehensions of extra-continental aliens is unsurprising given the state of America’s southern border. The Biden administration shows no interest in taking the necessary steps to address. Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is adamant in his belief that the border is under control and that his misguided policies will lead to success.

Our asylum system is irrevocably broken. Since at least the final years of the Obama administration, smugglers and illegal aliens have demonstrated the ease with which one can enter the United States by claiming asylum. Most illegal aliens have no hope of earning asylum, which immigration court records show, yet all of them receive work permits while they stay in the United States awaiting the end of their court cases, which take years. For many, that in itself is the only goal — get to the United States and stay. Even if they lose their court case, they are already entrenched in the U.S. and are unlikely to leave.

Why wouldn’t people from outside the Americas take advantage of this situation if the only thing stopping them is a plane ticket to Mexico City?

This is yet another example of the entirely predictable consequences of eviscerating border enforcement, turning a blind eye to asylum abuse, and avoiding the difficult task of legislating a solution.