The president of the United States is the head of the federal government's executive branch. Among that branch's responsibilities is law enforcement; this is why the president takes the oath to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
The Biden administration is failing utterly to perform these responsibilities, and nowhere is this more evident than with immigration.
The United States has an extensive body of immigration law that provides criteria for immigration and procedures by which foreign nationals can establish residence or citizenship. It is the constitutional obligation of the executive branch to enforce these laws. President Joe Biden refuses to do so.
The predictable result has been a flood of illegal immigrants. More than 300,000 people crossed the southern border illegally this past December, a record high in a year filled with staggeringly high numbers:
November: 242,418
October: 240,988
September: 269,735
August: 232,972
July: 183,503
June: 144,607
May: 204,561
April: 211,401
March: 191,900
February: 212,266
January: 156,274
Nearly 2.5 million people entered the U.S. illegally just in 2023. (Note that these numbers do not include anyone crossing the border without interacting with Border Patrol officials.) More than 10 million people have crossed the border illegally since Biden took office; that number is larger than the individual populations of 41 of the 50 states.
The costs to Americans are enormous and growing.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform published a comprehensive report last year showing that federal, state, and local expenditures for illegal immigration are approaching $200 billion annually.
But dollar figures don't capture the real costs to everyday Americans. We do not have sufficient affordable housing for our own citizens. Veterans and the elderly have been forced out of housing to make way for illegal immigrants. Our own homeless population is exploding, many of whom need treatment for addiction and/or mental illness. In Chicago, migrants have been living in the O'Hare airport. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has asked citizens to take migrants into their homes. Just this week, a New York City high school was closed, and its students were sent home for "remote" learning so that nearly 2,000 migrants could be housed at the school during a winter storm.
Illegal immigrants also distort congressional representation. They are counted in the decennial census population tallies, so their presence increases congressional representation for states with more of them. That reduces the voting power of citizens in states with lower populations.
Open borders facilitate human trafficking, including child sex trafficking. In 2022 alone, the Department of Homeland Security lost track of 85,000 unaccompanied children it had placed with "sponsors." A departmental whistleblower testified before Congress last spring, warning that "...[T]he U.S. Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multibillion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children." Illegal drug importation is contributing to record numbers of fatal drug overdoses in the U.S.
Illegal immigration also burdens our criminal justice system. According to the 2023 Annual Report of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, more than 170,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in this country last year. Nearly half already had criminal records; on average, four prior charges and convictions. A significant number are DUI arrests, and many involve fatalities. Just this past week, a Colorado woman and her son were killed in a drunken driving collision; the driver of the other vehicle was an illegal immigrant who had been deported from the U.S. four times.
As I have written elsewhere, public policy created by the refusal to enforce the law (as opposed to writing legislation to change it) poses unique difficulties for us as Americans. Our rights depend not upon statements in documents or speeches but on (a) the willingness of most people to respect them and (b) the willingness and ability of the legal and justice systems to enforce them. If someone can steal your property with impunity, and the police will not arrest them, you have no real property rights. And if the federal government does not enforce our immigration laws, then we do not have a border. Without a border, we are losing the distinct rights or privileges associated with citizenship. Anyone who makes it across the border can access welfare, subsidized food and housing, free education, health care -- even the (unlawful) ability to vote in our elections, a motive becoming increasingly obvious, as the same politicians who!
Support open borders also oppose election integrity laws like requiring voter ID or proof of citizenship.
The U.S. House of Representatives is moving forward this week with impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. His repeated lies and refusal to enforce our immigration laws should make his impeachment and removal a simple matter. But Mayorkas is only a tool; the real problem lies not with him but with his boss. It is too late -- and probably pointless -- to impeach Biden. And in any event, these policies did not originate with Biden. Refusing to enforce immigration law was the brainchild of former President Barack Obama, who sought to use open borders and unlimited immigration as a vehicle for massive wealth transfers from Americans to the poor and impoverished of other nations.
That seems now to be a plank in the Democratic Party platform.
America cannot afford another four years of an open-border Democrat administration. In 2024, we must elect a president who is committed to the integrity of the U.S. Constitution, the enforcement of our immigration laws, and the protection of American citizens and lawful residents.
The survival of a free and prosperous United States of America depends upon it.
To find out more about Laura Hollis and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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