A new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that the illegal alien population has increased to approximately 15.5 million as of the end of 2021, up from 14.5 million in 2020. The report also estimates that this population now costs American taxpayers a net of at least $143.1 billion annually – an increase of $9.4 billion from last year.
Since taking office, the Biden administration has made a point of not just rolling back everything that former President Donald Trump did to secure the southern border and deter illegal immigration, but also dismantle nearly all immigration enforcement measures on the books. This undermining of immigration enforcement ranges from protecting nearly all illegal aliens (including most serious criminals) from deportation to reinstating the Obama-era practice of catch-and-release.
The human cost of the Biden administration’s disastrous immigration policy was once again on full display after a young national guardsman drowned trying to save migrants in the Rio Grande. National Guard Specialist Bishop E. Evans was a 22-year-old from Arlington who joined the Texas National Guard in 2019 and served in Iraq and Kuwait. His heroic actions must never be forgotten.
Shortly after Mr. Evans’ body was found last week, a troubling detail emerged: The two migrants who Mr. Evans tried to rescue turned out to be drug smugglers. This unfortunate episode emphasizes the broader inhumanity and insanity of President Biden’s self-created border crisis.
Barring a miracle of biblical proportions, the Biden administration’s disastrous record on – well, there are actually too many issues to name – will result in the Democratic Party losing its slim majorities in both chambers of Congress.
By default, Republicans are almost certain to be in charge of the legislative branch of government in 2023 and will have to demonstrate to the American public that they are up to the task of remedying the countless crises wrought by the Biden administration.
An unprecedented 88% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. And, no matter how many times President Joe Biden might say it, it’s not all Vladimir Putin’s fault. Putin’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine has certainly added to the woes faced by Americans and people all across the globe, but most of the mess we’re in is self-inflicted, much of it by Biden himself.
Enforcing laws has not exactly been the Democrats’ strong suit in recent years. At the federal level, the Biden administration has blatantly gutted border and immigration enforcement and is even defying court rulings ordering them to resume enforcement. At the state and local level, prosecutors have essentially nullified entire sections of criminal and civil codes by refusing to prosecute many offenders, while in some states “progressive” laws require that even violent criminals are routinely released without bail.
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.
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.”
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.
At the mid-point of President Biden’s term in office, some 5.5 million migrants have illegally crossed our southern border and made their way into almost every community across the United States. No longer able to deny that more than a quarter of a million illegal migrants a month is a problem – much less a crisis – the administration began 2023 by taking steps to cover up the magnitude of the problem.