Throughout American history, legal immigration has played an integral role in maintaining our nation’s populace and prominence. The nation’s history is rooted in immigration, as the Founding Fathers first arrived in America from Europe. Centuries of immigrants, who lawfully came to our shores, worked to build the shining city on a hill that America stands as today. But during the past four years, millions of illegal aliens have poured across the border creating one of the greatest crises our nation has ever faced.
Illegal immigration presents a litany of legal and national security problems. Under the Biden administration, we have seen a departure from policies that keep Americans safe and secure the border to policy in favor of political games that have put America and her citizens at risk. During Biden’s term, we saw at least 8 million illegal immigrants flood into America. That is a population roughly the size of Virginia. These numbers alone are unsustainable and plain madness for any nation to try to absorb. And these illegal immigrants aren’t just coming from South America, but from adversarial countries including Iran and China, with untold numbers bringing with them terrorist ties.
Not only this, but we watched the Biden administration empower the cartels through weak border enforcement, the emergence and facilitation of sanctuary cities in states across America where violent criminals were shielded from consequences. The result was rampant child and human trafficking. As if to add insult to injury, the media and Biden administration demonized border agents who were just doing their jobs – assassinating their character by promoting a false narrative of “whipping” migrants.
This situation was both unacceptable and unsustainable. President Trump, through a series of Day One Executive Orders, appears poised to change direction. Among these orders are directions to reverse the Biden policy of selling off construction materials for the border wall and resume building it, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, and deploying the American military to secure the southern border.
The numbers of enforcement actions, as reported by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reveal a noticeable difference between actions during the administrations of Presidents Trump and Biden. Save a spike in FY19, border encounters never broke 700,000 per year during the first Trump administration. Once President Biden took office, however, the numbers soared to more than a million encounters each year. As his term progressed, border encounters continued to grow, reaching a peak of 3.201 million FY23. And, as we all know, these encounters include hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors — many of whom are sold into human trafficking. an August 2024 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General report revealed more than 300,000 these minors of were unaccounted for by the Biden administration.
Even the spike in the FY19 numbers during the first Trump administration does not even come close to President Biden’s lowest number of border encounters. In fact, the fewest border encounters in a fiscal year during the Biden administration — 1,956,519 in FY21 — is in excess of 800,000 more than the 1,148,024 encounters during FY19.
The effects of this crisis are being felt by communities across the nation. Just this month, a Florida teenager was kidnapped and attacked by an illegal immigrant — near President Trump’s own backyard. Americans watched the trial of Laken Riley’s accused murderer, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, unfold as a mountain of evidence demonstrated what many already knew: the killer had been deported before, and had interactions with police not long before he killed Riley Last October in Dallas, Texas, a woman was beaten and robbed inside her home in an affluent neighborhood by suspected Venezuelan gang members living in America. And that’s not to mention the Tren de Aragua encampments popping up across America, like in an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.
Illegal immigration adds complexity to the many and varied security threats our nation faces on a daily basis. By prioritizing corrective measures, secure border policies, and having the might of the American military to back it up, the incoming Trump administration is already taking concrete steps to stem the flow of illegal immigration and keep the American people safe.
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