by CHQ Staff
You know things are bad when the New York Times runs an article with the headline, “Border at ‘Breaking Point’ as More than 76,000 Unauthorized Migrants Cross in a Month.” We could quibble and point out they are illegal aliens, not “unauthorized migrants,” but why argue details when your enemies are finally helping you by telling the truth for a change?
National immigration reporter Caitlin Dickerson wrote:
The number of migrant families crossing the southwest border has once again broken records, with unauthorized entries nearly double what they were a year ago, suggesting that the Trump administration’s aggressive policies have not discouraged new migration to the United States.
More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high and a strong sign that stepped-up prosecution, new controls on asylum and harsher detention policies have not reversed what remains a powerful lure for thousands of families fleeing violence and poverty.
“The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point,” Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told reporters in announcing the new data on Tuesday.
McAleenan said processing centers filled to capacity, border agents struggling to meet medical needs and thousands of exhausted members of migrant families crammed into a detention system that was not built to house them — all while newcomers continue to arrive, sometimes by the busload, at the rate of 2,200 a day according to Ms. Dickerson’s report.
More than 50,000 adults are currently in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, the highest number ever and illegal aliens seem only to have adjusted their routes rather than turn back. Indeed, they are traveling in even larger numbers than before reports Ms. Dickerson.
Arrests along the southern border have increased 97 percent since last year, the Border Patrol said according to Ms. Dickerson, with a 434 percent increase in the El Paso sector, which covers the state of New Mexico and the two westernmost counties of Texas. Families, mainly from Central America, continue to arrive in ever-larger groups in remote parts of the southwest.
At least 70 such groups of 100 or more people have turned themselves in at Border Patrol stations that typically are staffed by only a handful of agents, reported Ms. Dickerson, often hours away from civilization. By comparison, only 13 such groups arrived in the last fiscal year, and two in the year before.
What this tells us is that this invasion is not a matter of happenstance; it is planned with a definite strategy and intelligence operation behind it.
The Editors of The New York Post have correctly identified at least part of the problem: Smugglers have put potential “unauthorized migrants” wise to how to take advantage of recent court decisions to claim asylum and remain here indefinitely.
They’re coming (mainly from Guatemala) in ever-larger groups, mostly families as opposed to individuals. They’ve been told that if they cross the border illegally, they only need cry “asylum.” And adults traveling with children have a better chance to stay.
Trump wants a wall to prevent that “one foot on American soil” rule. But what’s really needed is a change to our perverse asylum rules — which will take both political cooperation and compromise.
Consider: Officials say the biggest “pull factors” for migrant families are court settlements that not only bar deportations without lengthy proceedings, but also prevent the detainment of families for more than 20 days.
After that period, families must be allowed to settle here while their cases wind their way through immigration court.
In other words, once they make it across the border, we can’t reject them and we can’t hold them. That situation, McAleenan warns, is “unsustainable.”
The national emergency at our southern border is rapidly going from a national emergency to a national security and humanitarian disaster created by the dereliction of Congress and the over-reach of a hand-full of liberal federal judges.
We urge CHQ readers and friends to call Senators Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and the other Republican Senators TODAY. The toll-free Capitol Switchboard is (1-866-220-0044) tell them there IS a national emergency on our southern border, and that under Article II and Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution the President has the authority and duty to declare an emergency on our southern border. Tell them the President was right to use his constitutional authority to declare a national emergency and have the Pentagon build the wall and other needed security enhancements on our southern border. And finally, urge them to vote NO on the Democrat resolution disapproving the President’s Declaration of National Emergency.
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Photo “Donald Trump” by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. CC BY 2.0.
