Border Crisis Grows On
President Biden’s border crisis is still growing worse, and his pathetic “fixes” are doing nothing to stop it.
Team Joe cites the latest numbers from Customs and Border Protection as proof it’s finally getting a handle on things, as January saw fewer illegal crossers than December. Thing is, January’s almost always the low for the year (because of weather).
In fact, the January 2023 total of 156,274 migrant encounters is worse than last year’s January total and the highest January in 22 years.
In all, monthly encounters have been above 150,000 for more than 23 straight months, the entirety of Biden’s term so far, for a total of 6 million. That includes 1.2 million gotaways — migrants spotted but not arrested — plus however many crossed without even being seen.
Plus, the migrants are coming from ever-farther away. Of January’s 156,274, more than 43% (some 67,690) hailed originally from neither Mexico nor the Northern Triangle countries. Significant numbers are now coming from Russia and China.
Is it really Biden’s fault? As Todd Bensman revealed in The Post last week, Mexico’s government basically engineered a migrant wave to hit the border as he took office, betting that he’d blink. And he indeed failed the test. Worse, in two years he hasn’t come up with a way to stem the tide (or even shown signs of trying).
His biggest such move — new rules for migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua — involves simply legalizing many future would-be migrants from those nations. Nor has Team Biden explained how it’ll keep those restrictions in place when Title 42 finally dies in a few months.
He barely mentioned the crisis in his rambling State of the Union, mainly just blaming Republicans for refusing to pass his “comprehensive immigration reform” — which would basically end illegal immigration by making it all legal.
All Biden and his party offer is morality theater as migrants die, children are trafficked and deadly fentanyl flows unchecked into the country. And the public’s fury grows: 63% of Americans (per Gallup) are now dissatisfied with current immigration levels, the highest in a decade.
We recognize that these migrants want a better life (which is not a valid reason to claim asylum). But the Biden policy simply isn’t sustainable. No amount of blame-throwing can change that.