President Biden’s immigration policies have created a crisis on the border he can no longer afford to ignore. Despite his administration’s unwillingness to recognize the situation on the border as a serious humanitarian crisis, federal authorities have struggled to control this situation as a massive surge of migrants attempt to enter the U.S. illegally. Just last month, over 100,000 migrants attempted to cross the border, which is more than three times the number of attempts one year prior.
President Biden needs to realize his campaign promises and actions since taking office have created a crisis on the border which compromises the safety of law-abiding Americans. On the campaign trail, President Biden promised to ease immigration controls and put a moratorium on deportations, signaling to asylum-seekers the likelihood of gaining entry to the United States. He has further exacerbated the problem with his proposed immigration bill offering asylum and a pathway to citizenship to most of the illegal immigrants who are already in the United States.
The crisis on our border will continue growing if President Biden does not get serious and change his course of action. During his first days in office, he chose to no longer enforce a Trump-era rule applying Title 42 of the Public Health Safety Act to minors, which allowed the temporary suspension of entry of a person “when doing so is required in the interest of public health.” He also ended the Remain in Mexico policy requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting trial. These two decisions have contributed greatly to the massive influx of asylum seekers and the inhumane overcrowding at detention facilities.
The Border Patrol is currently dealing with a backlog of more than 4,000 unaccompanied minors, with more than 3,200 already having been held longer than the legal limit. One Customs and Border Patrol facility in Texas is now at 729% capacity and continues growing. This is unacceptable. Just this past weekend, the White House was forced to dispatch the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist with the ever-growing surge across the border.
Organized crime involving even the police is an integral part of the worsening immigration crisis. Criminal organizations are involved at every stage of the migration process, from motivating migrant departures for the United States to security along human smuggling routes through Mexico, to the mechanisms for entering the United States undetected.
There are two kinds of criminal groups at work here — transnational gangs and transnational criminal organizations. The brutal violence and unchecked extortion perpetrated by transnational gangs in the Northern Triangle (the nations of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala), targeting both civilian populations and rival gang members, motivate Central Americans to uproot their lives and families in the hope of a better, safer life in America.
Transnational criminal organizations control, regulate, and tax every land port along the southern border. They also control smuggling routes through Mexico and impose a tax, called a piso, on the smugglers and migrants who use them. These groups control the flow of migrant caravans, strategically diverting Border Patrol resources from sectors of the border that are used to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States.
For those who choose to leave the Northern Triangle for a better life in America, the escape from territory controlled by transnational gangs leads them into territory controlled by the transnational criminal organizations.
In most cases, they use coyotes — human smugglers and traffickers who charge them thousands of dollars. Human smugglers range from independent operators and loose networks to subsidiaries of the transnational criminal organizations themselves.
Beyond what migrants pay up front, as the Associated Press reports, many are kidnapped and tortured “until they reveal the phone numbers of relatives in the United States and holding them for ransom.”
If they can’t pay — or if their families can’t — they’re killed. As one analyst points out, “It’s a long trail of extortions, and it’s a very dangerous journey for all of them.”
The groups also sometimes use migrants as drug mules. They will coerce migrants traveling through their territory into carrying large bags, or mochilas, filled with illegal drugs. Not only does this perpetuate the stream of narcotics into the U.S., it also victimizes migrants, making them desperate to unlawfully enter and remain in the U.S. — even if imprisoned on drug charges — for fear of being killed if they are sent home.
The bottom line is that throwing open our borders — as President Biden has effectively done — only serves to empower these transnational criminal enterprises. His immigration policies aren’t humanitarian; they’re creating more victims.
President Biden’s reckless immigration policies and his failure to enforce our many immigration laws have created an unprecedented crisis at our border. We are a nation of law and order, and we must have a strong border to protect the health, safety and security of the American citizens. It’s more important now than ever to secure the border and fix the Biden Border Crisis before it gets even further out of hand.
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