As the Biden campaign ratcheted-up its rhetoric leading to the 2020 election – decrying not another mile of wall would be built – I, as the former acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, knew they were playing a dangerous game of politics. From an operational perspective I knew the cost and how it would jeopardize our border security.
In March, as the impact of President Joe Biden’s open borders policies turned a border problem into a full-blown border crisis, the president handed his second-in-command the task of trying to convince the American public that the administration sincerely wanted to fix the mess he created.
Last week, the Biden administration announced that it would extend the Title 42 public health order. Title 42 allows immigration authorities to quickly remove illegal aliens from the country to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in processing facilities and within American communities. The extension reveals that the administration views the order as effective and should rightfully keep it in place as apprehension totals remain at historic levels and COVID-19 variants continue to proliferate.
Check out what Bob wrote in the Beeville-Bee Picayune:
The incoherence is breathtaking, even for some members of the president’s own party. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, is urging the White House to stop releasing thousands of illegal aliens, many of them unvaccinated and untested for coronavirus, into the country’s interior.
The Afghanistan debacle is only the latest, and most damaging, policy failure on the part of an administration that is seemingly caught off-guard by the sun rising in the east. The Biden administration does not seem to grasp the connection between ideologically-driven actions and statements, and consequences.
The new regime in Kabul has reneged on its assurances of respect for human rights, women’s rights and free passage for those seeking to escape the Sharia hellhole the Taliban is imposing. As they rolled across Afghanistan, the Taliban freed some 5,000 prisoners who had been held at the Bagram Air Base, which the U.S. abandoned. In addition to the Taliban’s fighters, the hardened terrorists turned loose from Bagram reportedly include some associated with ISIS and al Qaeda.
Congress established Temporary Protected Status (TPS) more than 30 years ago to address exactly the sort of situation that is playing out in Ukraine today. An estimated 30,000 Ukrainian citizens are believed to be in the United States on some sort of temporary visa, or here illegally. A percentage of those Ukrainians may want to get home right now to join the resistance to Russia’s military invasion and subjugation of their homeland, or to be with their families in a time of crisis.
Congress established Temporary Protected Status (TPS) more than 30 years ago to address exactly the sort of situation that is playing out in Ukraine today. An estimated 30,000 Ukrainian citizens are believed to be in the United States on some sort of temporary visa, or here illegally. A percentage of those Ukrainians may want to get home right now to join the resistance to Russia’s military invasion and subjugation of their homeland, or to be with their families in a time of crisis.
Tucked away near the end of his long, rambling State of the Union address, President Joe Biden spoke of the “need to secure the border” and added a few vague remarks about “fix[ing] the immigration system.” It is probably a topic he would have preferred to avoid altogether, because talking about it only reminded the American public (momentarily distracted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and raging inflation) of how disastrous his border and immigration policies have been.
The $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill that will fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year was approved with bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress and then signed by President Joe Biden. With a war raging in Europe and inflation raging at home, the American public can take some reassurance in the fact that Democrats and Republicans managed to approve the spending package without even the threat of a government shutdown.