Even in a nation that includes the principle of separation of church and state in its founding document, for centuries our political leaders have often heeded the counsel of religious leaders on important moral issues of the day. But religious leaders, like politicians, have had a mixed record when it comes to being on the right side of history. The antebellum South had more than its share of pastors who found justification in Scripture for maintaining slavery. Father Charles Coughlin was perhaps the most prominent American Nazi sympathizer in the 1930s.
President Biden, who came to office two years ago with some of the lowest levels of illegal immigration in modern history, largely ignored the historic border crisis he created by devoting only a few lines to it in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
The raging border crisis that began the day President Biden took office is clearly by design. His administration wants open borders and they have been wildly successful in achieving that dubious goal.
America’s surging illegal alien population now costs U.S. taxpayers $151 billion a year. An exhaustive study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform finds that an estimated 15.5 million illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children consume about $182 billion a year in federal, state and local benefits and services, which are offset by only $31 billion in taxes paid. The net 2022 cost of illegal immigration represents a 30% increase over the 2017 cost of $116 billion.
In a recent study, the Federation for American Immigration Reform demonstrated that an estimated 15.5 million illegal aliens and their 5.4 million U.S.-born children cost American taxpayers a net annual sum of $150.7 billion as of the start of 2023. That is a whopping 30% increase since 2017.
In the face of an unprecedented wave of illegal migration unleashed by the Biden administration, the Florida Legislature is poised to enact legislation aimed at deterring migrants from taking up residence in the Sunshine State. Curbing illegal immigration was a key promise Gov. Ron DeSantis made to voters last year, who rewarded him with a landslide reelection victory in November.
Proving the adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, America’s policy of allowing unaccompanied alien children, known as UACs, who arrive at our border to enter and remain here is inflicting grievous harm on the children themselves and on communities across the country where they are placed.
Read Pawel Styrna and Michael Capuano’s op-ed on FAIR’s illegal alien population 2023 report:
How many foreign nationals really reside in the United States illegally? That is no doubt a question many Americans would like answers to, and we have the right to know what’s being allowed to take place in our own country. According to most mainstream estimates, that population is somewhere from 10-12 million. Defying all logic and evidence, that estimate has remained almost exactly the same for over a decade despite wild changes in policy, misleadingly implying that illegal immigration is not really that big of a deal.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas spent more than five hours before the House Judiciary Committee answering questions about his department’s management of the border and its seeming lack of interest in enforcing U.S. immigration laws.
Summer is over. Kids are heading back to school and members of Congress are heading back to Washington to try to hammer out a federal budget for the new fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1. In the best of times, this is never an easy undertaking – and these are most certainly not the best of times.