“Unbelievable as it may seem to us today, it was only 15 years ago — with the 9/11 terrorist attacks still fresh in our minds — when Congress came together in a bipartisan effort to pass the Secure Fence Act of 2006.” That comment came from Mark Morgan, in a speech delivered this past July at Hillsdale College.
Morgan served as acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration, and as chief of U.S. Border Patrol in the Obama administration, and provided details on this action. “The Secure Fence Act directed the Department of Homeland Security to take appropriate actions to achieve ‘operational control’ over U.S. land and maritime borders to ‘prevent unlawful entry.’” The measure had the support of 80 of the 100 U.S. Senators.
“It defined operational control as the prevention of all unlawful entries into the U.S., including terrorists, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband,” he continued. “And it specifically set the goal of providing ‘at least two layers of reinforced fencing, installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors.’ It added thousands of Border Patrol personnel, mandated the acquisition of new technologies, and resulted in the construction of more than 650 miles of physical barrier along the southern border of the U.S. between 2006 and 2011.”
With those actions, the southern border became even more secure than it had been, sparked by concerns of additional terrorist efforts to kill Americans. And Morgan noted that there was substantial support for this action in the Congress before and after those actions were taken.
In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama said: “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”
And Senator Chuck Schumer said in 2009: “Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple … People who enter the United States without permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the U.S. legally.”
And then there was this comment: “Let me tell you something, folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons — hear me, tons — of everything from byproducts from methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin, and it’s all coming up through corrupt Mexico.” That comment was voiced by then-Senator, and current President, Joe Biden, in 2006.
But since that time, something has happened. Congressional Democrats seemingly no longer care about security at the southern border. “Some attribute the breakdown of the bipartisan consensus on securing the border to the fact that Democrats came to look on illegal immigrants as much-needed Democrat voters,” Morgan said. “For whatever reason, a decade later these same Democratic leaders were lambasting President Trump’s border wall policy as ‘immoral and ineffective,’ even ‘racist,’ and fiercely opposing any and every serious proposal aimed at enforcing immigration law.”
“One of the most ridiculous criticisms I’ve heard.” Morgan noted, “is that the wall is ‘a fourteenth century solution for a twenty-first century problem.’ The same could be said of the wheel, which also still works pretty well.”
In the minds of at least some of today’s Congressional Democrats, the tighter and more successful border security methods of the recent past are immoral and ineffective, and trying to prevent drug dealers, child traffickers, and terrorists from entering the country is racist. Brilliant!
One of the most effective and sensible programs dealing with illegal aliens crossing the border was called the Remain in Mexico Program. It required people illegally entering or being smuggled into the country with a minor to be returned to Mexico as opposed to being released into the U.S. with only a date for a hearing that most ignore.
Joe Biden, almost as soon as he drew a breath after being sworn in, canceled the Remain in Mexico Program, replacing it with the senseless “catch and release” method that existed prior to the Trump administration’s successful alternative.
Now, however, according to Morgan, “In response to a lawsuit brought by the Texas Attorney General, a federal judge has recently ruled that the Remain in Mexico Program must be reinstated, and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to overturn that ruling.”
This may be the best thing to occur in the Biden administration’s brief but catastrophic tenure, and Biden had nothing to do with it, other than to have cancelled it early on, and opposed its reinstatement.
It is projected that 1.7 million illegal aliens will enter the U.S. in 2021. Border Patrol documents show that more than160,000 illegal aliens have been released into the U.S. since March, often with little to no supervision.
These illegal aliens have not been vaccinated, and they have not been vetted. What could possibly go wrong?
Need we even ask that question?
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