The solution to this unprecedented breach of our southwestern border is obvious: The Biden administration needs to stop prioritizing illegal aliens over Americans, stop substituting its own policy for Congress’s, and start fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to enforce federal immigration laws, rather than abdicating that duty in the name of “equity.”
While America has suffered from huge amounts of illegal immigration in recent decades, those wishing to enter illegally have generally at least had to evade the authorities. This has been a constant across presidential administrations of both parties. Under President Biden, however, there has been a sea change, as his administration has effectively refused to enforce federal immigration laws. Instead of turning back or detaining non-citizens who have no clear authorization to be in this country, the Biden administration has routinely apprehended them and then summarily released them into the United States.
At the same time, hordes of illegal aliens have crossed what is now essentially an open southwestern border. Indeed, there have already been more “got-aways” (those detected but not apprehended) in the first two-and-a-half years under the Biden administration than there were in the eight years spanning the two prior presidential terms. Huge numbers of migrants have journeyed to the U.S. border under Biden, encouraged by his rhetoric of leniency, and they generally haven’t been disappointed. Among those arrivals have been increasing numbers of foreign nationals on the terrorist watch list. In its refusal to “take care” that the immigration laws “be faithfully executed,” the Biden administration marks an abrupt—and unconstitutional—departure from all prior precedent.
Key Arguments:
- The Biden administration is emphasizing “equity” over law enforcement, in defiance of federal law.
- In just 2.5 years under Biden, there have already been 1 million more encounters (5.6 million) with non-citizens at
the southwest border than there were in the prior 8 years (4.6 million) under Presidents Obama and Trump. - In December 2020, pre-Biden, the U.S. Border Patrol released 17 aliens into the U.S.; in December 2022, under Biden, it released 140,355—more than 8,000 times as many.
- The number of encounters on the southwest border between the U.S. Border Patrol and those on the terrorist watchlist increased from 3 in fiscal years (FY) 2019–2020, to 238 in FY 2022–2023, a 79-fold increase.
- In just two years under the Biden administration, the U.S.’s foreign-born population over the age of 16 rose by 3.9 million—more than enough people to populate a new Los Angeles.
