December 5, 2023
No objective person can look at the chaos at the southern border and not be alarmed. Of course, the Biden administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, insists that the border is closed.
However, the New York Times reported in October that “Migrants were caught crossing the southern border of the United States more times in the past year than in any other year since at least 1960, when the government started keeping track of the data.
“It is the third record-setting year in a row,” and there were “more than 2.4 million apprehensions in the 2023 fiscal year, which ended in September. That tops the previous record, set a year earlier, of more than 2.3 million, according to government data released on Saturday. During the 2021 fiscal year, there were more than 1.7 million apprehensions.”
Question for Mayorkas: If 2.3 and 2.4 million people can enter the country illegally in two consecutive years, and those numbers have set records for illegal entry going back 50 years, how many illegal entries constitute a situation where the border could reasonably be considered open?
No doubt the response will be: crickets.
And while states on the border are suffering immensely, and illegals are being transported around the country by the federal government, even the sanctuary states and cities are beginning to understand the pain of these lax federal policies, and want action to be taken.
Critics point out that while many or maybe most of these illegal aliens merely seek a better life, many of them have other intentions: trafficking children, women, and drugs; gang violence; and worse.
In former President Donald Trump’s final 32 months in the White House, Border Patrol agents apprehended 1.9 million illegal aliens. By contrast, in the first 32 months of President Joe Biden’s tenure, the Border Patrol apprehended 6.3 million illegal aliens.
In addition to the millions of illegals apprehended, there have been 1.5 million “gotaways,” illegals that were spotted and counted, but not apprehended. As the number of those apprehended increases, so does the number of gotaways. We don’t know who they are or why they came. And we don’t know where they went.
Illegals on the terror watch list that have been apprehended have increased in number since fiscal year 2017, when two were caught. In 2018, there were six; in 2019 there were none; and in 2020 there were three.
And then the increases began. In 2021 - 15; in 2022 - 98; in 2023 - 169.
If that by itself isn’t bad enough, wait until you see which countries they are coming from.
From October 1, 2021 to Oct. 4, 2023 some 73,000 “Special Interest Aliens” entered the country from places including Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Syria.
In the first half of October of this year, more than 30 came from Iran and Pakistan each. More than 100 came from Russia. Almost 2,000 came from China.
Are any of these illegals associated with Iranian terrorist proxies, like Hamas or Hezbollah? And many of these illegals are military age males. And what about those from China, our most serious adversary?
This is the reality that the feeble and perilous Biden border policy has produced.
To call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil,” Wray said.
“Terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States,” said the fiscal year 2024 threat assessment by the Department of Homeland Security.
And, FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters on a call in October that “Here in the U.S., we cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or their foreign terrorist organizations could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil.”
The weakness demonstrated by the Biden administration on the southern border has not gone without notice around the world. Since the butchery carried out in the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, Iranian terrorist proxies have attacked U.S. military installations in the region 75 times. The U.S. response has been meek and scarce. The only good news is that while some military personnel have been injured, none have been killed.
This sort of under-reaction will not deter future attacks; they invite more. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the end of October, two weeks after the attacks began, “Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them. If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.”
Austin’s words had no effect on Iran and its terrorist proxies; the attacks have continued. And the tough talk threatening “further necessary measures” has not led to one significant retaliatory strike.
Biden hasn’t been moved to stand up to Iran and order an action to exact a substantial price from the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. And until Iran is shown that we will back up our words with significant action, these attacks will continue, and likely get worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment