As the unaccompanied minor and illegal immigration crisis at the southern border continues to reach beyond critical mass, the Biden administration is still attempting to argue it has implemented a “humane process.”
“President Biden came into office with a much more humane message, with a message that we were going to enforce our laws but also have a humane migration system. And I think what he means is that we are going to treat people fairly,” White House Southern Border Coordinator Roberta Jackson said in a recent interview with CNN. “It is a more humane system.”
“The president has made clear, and this administration has made clear, that we are going to pursue an effective and humane immigration policy and unwind what we believe was the ineffective and inhumane policy over the course of the last four years,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan recently told reporters at the White House. “We’ve made clear that now is not the time to come to the United States.”
But the administration hasn’t made it clear that now isn’t the time to come (when is, exactly?) and President Biden’s actions from the Oval Office desk have sent an entirely different message.
On his first day in the White House and just hours after he was inaugurated, Biden signed an executive order halting the vast majority of deportations for 100 days. Despite the order being halted by a federal judge a week later, the damage was already done and the race to the border from the Northern Triangle was on.
Two days before the order was signed and after months of campaign promises about pulling back border security, a new caravan convened and pushed its way through lines of Guatemalan troops. Currently, hundreds of people traveling through Mexican can be found wearing T-shirts stamped with Biden’s campaign logo and say “BIDEN, Please let us in!”
U.S. officials continue to claim Biden’s policies don’t mean the border is open and yet, he’s seen as the “Migrant President” by his counterpart, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Further, a quick look at the numbers proves the “humane” nature of Biden’s new policies are simply rhetorical.
According to lawyers who have visited children in the facilities, 4,200 minors are being kept in Border Patrol “jail like cells” for longer than 72-hour maximum legal limit. They are sleeping on cold floors, in crammed conditions and going hungry. And while the White House doesn’t want to “label” the situation as a crisis or disaster, the deployment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to handle the situation proves it is exactly those things.
“FEMA is now integrated and co-located with HHS to look at every available option to quickly expand physical capacity for appropriate lodging. The workforce of DHS, including CBP, the Federal Protective Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and volunteers from across the Department through the DHS Volunteer Force, will help to provide shelter capacity, security, and other support as needed,” the Department of Homeland Security released over the weekend.
The unaccompanied minor crisis isn’t the only disaster unfolding. For the American people who have been devastated by coronavirus, this process is also inhumane.
Current reports and data on the ground show 10 percent of apprehended and released illegal immigrants or unaccompanied minors test positive for the virus. In interviews, many who test positive admit to knowingly traveling to different parts of the country onboard buses.
“Miriam Izaguirre, a 35-year-old from Honduras who also tested positive, told Noticias Telemundo Investiga that she planned to travel by bus to Houston,” Fox News reports. “A worker at a bus company that operates out of the station told the news organization they cannot ask passengers for proof of coronavirus test results before boarding.”
A 10 percent positivity rate is more than enough to shut down entire cities and destroy the livelihoods of Americans all over again. Testing is being done by local nongovernmental organizations and overwhelmed local governments, not the federal government. Quarantining of positive cases is not being enforced. A public health crisis, or another wave of the pandemic, is underway.
Lastly, these new “humane” policies are adding to the opioid and drug overdose crisis in America. Violent drug cartels are taking advantage of gaps left by Border Patrol agents, who are overwhelmed by unaccompanied minors and illegal immigrants, to increase narcotics trafficking and other criminal activities.
“One Mexican official familiar with migration developments, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said organized crime began changing its modus operandi ‘from the day Biden took office’ and now exhibited ‘unprecedented’ levels of sophistication,” Reuters reports. “That includes briefing clients on the latest immigration rules, using technology to outfox authorities, and disguising smuggling operations as travel agencies, assessments showed.”
All of these consequences were predicable and yet, the Biden administration did nothing to prevent the situation. They enabled and created the crisis. They’ve set Border Patrol and other local law enforcement agencies up to fail.
Pavlich is the editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.