Americans woke up to dual headlines last Thursday: 4.4 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims, bringing the five-week job loss total to 26 million, and President Trump signed an Executive Order temporarily halting immigration to the United States.
One headline was true, while the other one wasn’t. Sadly, the epic job losses resulting from the coronavirus crisis continues unabated. And, regrettably, the Executive Order that President Trump signed late Wednesday which, in the president’s words, is intended to “ensure that American workers of all backgrounds will be first in line for jobs as our economy reopens,” does nothing of the kind.
In 2019, people working outside their homelands sent $554 billion of their earnings back to their native countries. Nearly all of this cash flowed from developed nations to less developed ones. The $554 billion in remittances eclipsed the total of all foreign investment in these receiving nations, and three times the amount these nations received in foreign aid.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. The global health crisis touched off a global economic crisis, resulting in millions of lost jobs and restrictions on travel that make it difficult for foreign workers to get to a job in another country, even if one is available.
Check out what Preston wrote for the Daily Caller.
House Democrats recently voted to strip the president of one of the most important tools at his disposal to protect America from foreign threats: the ability to suspend travel to the United States. The Democrats voted 233-183 to pass the NO BAN Act. Had this bill been law in early 2020, President Trump would have been unable to ban travel from China and Europe, which saved American lives according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Under current law, the president can react in real time to national security threats by restricting the entry of aliens under the authority laid out in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Candidate Joe Biden was harshly critical of Donald Trump’s handling of immigration policy and border enforcement. He was even critical and apologetic about the Obama administration’s record on immigration, in which he served as vice president, even though President Obama’s supposed toughness on immigration was vastly hyped.
Rather than address any element of the ongoing Biden border crisis, House Democrats spent their time moving legislation that only worsens the already grave situation at our southern border. The NO BAN Act jeopardizes our national security and public health, while the Access to Counsel Act further overwhelms our immigration courts and creates unnecessary burdens to already strained immigration authorities. Passage of both bills reveal how detached House Democrats are from properly addressing the nation’s most pressing immigration matters.
President Joe Biden and his administration continue to peddle the public relations snake oil that spending money in the Northern Triangle countries will help regain control of the southern border and reduce illegal immigration. The administration plans to spend $4 billion as part of its strategy to look like they’re trying to control the border, provide more than $300 million in emergency aid and has contemplated granting direct cash payments to migrants.
Of course many in the Biden administration were perplexed by Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance during her recent trip to Guatemala and Mexico. They must have been watching the same NBC News interview the rest of the nation watched, in which a clearly frustrated Lester Holt pressed the vice president on why she was visiting Guatemala without having been to this nation’s southern border, which is ground zero of the border crisis.
In March, the Biden-Harris administration restarted the Central American Minors (CAM) program, an Obama-Biden migration scheme that was terminated by the Trump administration. On June 15, in a joint statement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the new administration – which is currently facing a border/illegal migration crisis of its own creation – announced that it is expanding CAM.
Consider the old bromide that “politics ends at the water’s edge.” This was rooted in the idea that while there may be robust discussion internally on issues of international import, there is an assumption that in the end a bipartisan consensus must be established around policies that touch upon our international relations.
On August 2, Alejandro Mayorkas will have officially served as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for six months. In this short timeframe, Mayorkas has systematically erased our nation’s border security, causing record levels of illegal immigration, illicit drug flows and deaths. Mayorkas’ dereliction of his duty to safeguard the health and security of the American people means he must be removed from his position immediately.