Biden's open border will cost Democrats in 2024
Anger over Biden's refusal to close the border has become a liability for Democrats
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Dozens of asylum-seekers, all in the country illegally, are complaining that New York City wants to move them from their current housing in a three-star Manhattan hotel to a less cushy site in Brooklyn. They are protesting what they call "discrimination against immigrants" and refusing to budge, loathe to leave their mini-bars and en suite bathrooms.
Naturally, in a city famous for sky-high rents and tiny apartments – one 80 square-foot home costing $650 per month made headlines recently -- this attitude is none too popular.
Kudos to Governors Abbott of Texas, DeSantis of Florida, and Ducey of Arizona for making every state a border state. Were it not for those officials sending tens of thousands of migrants north to cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., those Americans hostage to what the liberal media chooses to report would still be unaware of the flood of people entering the country illegally across our southern border.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As it is, the cost of the estimated 5.5 million undocumented people who have crossed into the U.S. while President Joe Biden has been president is being shared by blue and red states alike. While many of those people have been deported, more than one million have been allowed to stay at least temporarily. Another estimated million or so have disappeared into the shadows, off the radar.
BIDEN AVOIDS MENTIONING NYC MIGRANT PROTEST DURING CITY VISIT
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 30: Migrants speak with NYC Homeless Outreach members as they camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. Migrants who have been staying at the Watson Hotel since arriving to NYC were evicted over the weekend to be relocated to the recently opened up migrant relief center for single adult men at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. The ones who refused have been camping out in front of the hotel since eviction. Several migrants who agreed to the relocation returned, complaining of lack of heat and bathroom space. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Michael M. Santiago)
Taxpayers – including those in hard-pressed Democrat-run cities like New York -- are none too pleased. As communities deal with the rising number of undocumented persons in their schools, demanding emergency medical care and showing up at local food banks, anger over the administration’s refusal to close our border has become a political liability for Joe Biden. Just the schooling alone is estimated to cost taxpayers almost $8 billion per year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Even some Democrats are up in arms. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has estimated the cost of migrants pouring into the city at $2 billion – which the city cannot afford. He has called the lack of help from the White House "inhumane" and "irresponsible." Overall, nearly two-thirds of the country, according to Real Clear Politics, disapproves of the president’s handling of immigration.
In response, and because the new GOP majority in the House is preparing to hold hearings exposing the dangers and costs of Biden’s failed border policies, the White House announced earlier this year new rules intended to cut down on people crossing into our country illegally from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The changes include creating a new "parole" system for 30,000 migrants each month from those nations and appear to be working, at least temporarily. But the half-baked approach has angered immigration activists, who accuse Biden of aping President Donald Trump’s tough crack-down on asylum-seekers, and also conservatives, who have sued to stop the new program.
The administration claims that a 97 percent drop in the number of migrants from the cited countries proves the program is already a success, but others say the effort will only encourage illegal immigration from other countries and that allowing nearly 400,000 people into the country from those four nations will create a permanent new (and illegal) "amnesty" class.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The truth is that Biden could produce a drastic drop in illegal immigration overnight if he chose to do so. All he needs to do is line up six Boeing 737 airliners at the Del Rio International Airport, near one of Texas’ largest border stations, fill the planes with young males recently apprehended at the border, and send them back to Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, Haiti and Venezuela.
Films of those deportations would spark an avalanche of outrage on mass media and social media, but would also announce to the world that we are no longer welcoming visitors who break our laws. This is not rocket science, and it’s far simpler than the convoluted measures announced by the White House earlier this year.
Heartless? Perhaps, but no more heartless than encouraging hundreds of thousands of people each month to risk their lives and the lives of their children by undertaking a dangerous and costly journey north to our border. No more heartless than letting hundreds drown trying to cross the Rio Grande River or by enriching lawless coyotes and cartels who profit from the desperate asylum-seekers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Joe Biden is doing no one any favors by continuing to allow this mass migration. It has to stop. And it can stop; Joe Biden knows it.
Remember that in 2014, during the Obama administration, Biden traveled to Guatemala on a widely-publicized trip expressly to tell residents of the region that our border was not open, and that people coming into the U.S. illegally would be deported.
Then-Vice President Biden talked about the hardship and dangers of people trekking north, relying on the coyotes who "routinely engage in physical and sexual abuse, and extortion of these innocent, young women and men by and large."
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Biden met with the Presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, and the Honduran Coordinator General, and the Mexican Secretary of Government (Obama met with Mexico’s president) and agreed the situation was "unsustainable." He promised hundreds of millions of dollars to combat the "root causes" of the problem, which sounds familiar.
More important, Biden announced at a press conference that our government was surging "government enforcement resources" to close our border and promised that if someone’s case was asylum case was rejected, "he or she will be removed from the United States and returned home." Biden emphasized: "Everyone should know that," and added, "My guess is a vast majority…will be going home."
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The campaign -- with attendant media coverage -- worked, and almost immediately the number of unaccompanied children dropped.
Is Biden serious about closing our border and protecting our country? No. Democrats hope to see all those asylum-seekers become voters over time, all but ensuring their majority.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a winning issue for Republicans in 2024. Count on it.