Democrats have been proven wrong in their assessment on the border. Yet, even with Americans of all political persuasions now understanding that America is being overwhelmed by illegal border-crossers, Democrats have gone even further out on a limb to obstruct a solution to this crisis.
Until recently, Democrats were claiming that there was no border crisis. They asserted that any suggestion of a boundless inflow of illegal immigrants across our southern border was untrue. In fact, the left claimed that the problem was a “manufactured crisis.”
By alleging that the emergency was unreal, leftists were able to ignore the escalating problem until it became an outrageous, overwhelming crisis.
The left is now trying to concoct a legend that America is running Nazi-era type of concentration camps. Since that was proven false, they have doubled down.
Recently, Democratic members of Congress went to the border and claimed that a woman was told to drink from a toilet. But that wasn’t accurate.
The truth is that Border Patrol really has no detention facilities at all. It has holding facilities – rooms designed for short term custody, usually for several hours, to process illegal aliens. Border Patrol has no place to transfer all of the illegal immigrants in its custody – we are still apprehending about 3,500 per day – and facilities are completely overwhelmed. The CBP bed deficit is nearly 15,000 beds. Under normal circumstances, detainees would then be transferred to an ICE holding facility, which is designed for longer-term detention.
The conditions are understandably crowded. But contrary to the politically motivated claims of unsanitary, abusive conditions, NGO’s have reported that the facilities are clean, and the Border Patrol personnel are working to accommodate overcrowded conditions and make detainees as comfortable as possible. In fact, by some estimates, agents spend more than one-half of their time taking care of humanitarian needs.
Because of the record numbers of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border, ICE facilities are also overwhelmed. ICE has a deficit of approximately 10,000 beds. ICE simply has no place to put more people, and are having to release people into the American interior. We give them a notice to appear for a later court date to process their case, but we know that only 13 percent return for their hearing.
The left's new mantra is: the “real border crisis” is that Border Patrol and ICE agents commit atrocities and maintain Nazi-style concentration camps for those who voluntarily enter our country illegally and then turn themselves in. Democrats have cognitive dissonance.
Democrats are wrong on what symbolizes our border emergency. The most outrageous examples of human rights atrocities committed by human and sex traffickers are the almost one-third of women and 17 percent of males attempting to enter our country illegally who will be sexually abused.
Even after release into the country, the illegal migrants will often be beholden to the traffickers and will continue to be used and exploited.
Children, including infants, are sold or rented, to be used as fake family units in order to take advantage of our laws and the Flores Settlement, which require that family units be released quickly.
The most humane policy is to enforce our laws. That would provide a deterrent to those who wish to enter our country illegally.
We allow more than 1 million people a year to legally immigrate into America. We should incentivize people to come legally and deter those who wish to enter illegally.
The left’s narrative is again crumbling. Its Alinsky tactics are being exposed.
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The reality is that we need a wall on our southern border. We must demand that Mexico stop the flow of hundreds of thousands of people across its borders on the way north. We must enforce our laws by deporting the people who have already received due process and been ordered removed from America by a judge.
I urge my Democrat colleagues to quit cutting off the limb upon which they are sitting. Acknowledge that the crisis is real, that our southern border is being overrun, and that we must take immediate steps to remedy the problem. It’s time they construct a narrative based on the facts.