Former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has already been declared unlawful by a federal judge in Texas — a decision that is likely to be upheld later this year by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, Mr. Obama admitted, on 22 occasions, that he lacked the authority to grant across-the-board protections to illegal aliens before he succumbed to pressure from his political base and created DACA in 2012.
The chattering class and the ruling elites of deep blue cities and states are aghast that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is resorting to political publicity stunts to bring national attention to the migration crisis the Biden administration is inflicting on his state. In doing so, Abbott is giving these self-declared sanctuary jurisdictions a taste of the hardships imposed by Biden’s open borders policy and exposing their self-righteous hypocrisy. Abbott’s political theater has been so successful that Governors Doug Ducey of Arizona, Ron DeSantis of Florida, and even the Democratic mayor of El Paso have gotten into the act.
If we only listen to what the mainstream media and the open-borders lobby have to say, mass immigration is an unqualified good with no negatives worth mentioning, and anyone who disagrees with that sentiment is an anti-immigrant xenophobe.
In July, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens offered a notable mea culpa, acknowledging his failure to read or empathize with the mood of about half of the country. “I belonged to a social class that my friend Peggy Noonan called ‘the protected.’ My family lived in a safe and pleasant neighborhood. Our kids went to an excellent public school. I was well paid, fully insured, insulated against life’s harsh edges,” he wrote.
We have all seen the iconic photo allegedly showing a horse-mounted Border Patrol agent “whipping” a Haitian migrant on the banks of the Rio Grande on Sept. 24, 2021. We now all know that the report was false. No “whipping” or “strapping” ever occurred.
After both parties received, at best, C-minus grades from voters in the midterm elections, a lame-duck Congress will reconvene next week to take care of unfinished business. By far, the most important matter for Congress to address is funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year — a formidable task in itself. But it will be hard to resist the temptation to sneak in legislation on a few unpopular pet issues now that members are no longer accountable to voters.
Proponents of unchecked immigration have a long history of labeling anyone and everyone who advocates for limits on immigration and for the rule of law. In the early 2000s, it began with the Southern Poverty Law Center labeling just about every organization calling for reducing immigration or enforcing immigration laws as “hate groups.”
Folks on Capitol Hill spend a lot of time thinking up clever acronyms for their bills. In the case of the Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act, the acronym is not only clever, but descriptive. Aside from being the symbol of our nation, the eagle is a predator known for raiding the nests of other birds and making off with their eggs and chicks – which is a perfect metaphor for H.R. 3648, sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).
President Joe Biden checked a box on Sunday. In a transparent attempt to silence a growing chorus of criticism about his failure to get a firsthand look at the state of the border – where over 5 million have illegally entered under his watch – the president finally deigned to take three hours out of his weekend getaway in Delaware to visit El Paso.
With the turn of the calendar and the unofficial start of the 2024 campaign cycle, President Biden took two steps designed to quell the growing furor over his handling of the raging, self-inflicted border crisis.