For years, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed a border wall was immoral.
Just before the midterm elections in November, President Obama claimed that migrant caravans were a “thousand miles away,” absolutely not a threat, and part of a “political stunt” by President Donald Trump. (At least one caravan arrived just a few days after Obama’s campaign stump speech.)
When it proved not to be true, Democrats claimed there was no room for border security in an already-crowded budget.
Now, after it’s been proven that the latest border security proposal is less than one-tenth of one percent of the total budget, Democrats claim there is no crisis – that it must be “manufactured” by the Trump administration.
Unlike their overwhelmingly supportive votes for the 2006 Secure Fence Act — which contained virtually the same components as President Donald Trump’s current proposal to bolster border security with fencing and personnel – Democrats now offer no help as President Donald Trump seeks to solve the growing national security and humanitarian crisis.
Democrats who deny there is a crisis need an introduction to the cold, hard facts.
Among the immigrants we are aware of, 2,000 new migrants arrive at our border every day. The United States simply does not have the resources necessary to hold these immigrants, and legal loopholes forced by activist court rulings over the last few years prevent us from immediately returning them to their home countries.
As a result, U.S. immigration courts are overwhelmed, suffering from a backlog of 800,000 cases — nearly 1 million immigration cases that require judges, staff resources and more all the expense to the American taxpayers.
However great those challenges are, administrative reasons are actually the least of our concerns.
Illegal immigrant criminals are overrunning our border.
The White House reports that in just the last two years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested a stunning 266,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records. Of those, 100,000 of them had been charged with or convicted of assaults; nearly 30,000 for sex crimes; and 4,000 for violent killings. All of these figures place Americans in the crosshairs of dangerous criminals.
Sadly, American women and children aren’t the only ones threatened at the hands of illegal immigrant criminals — women inside the caravans are also at risk.
One in three migrant women are sexually assaulted while trekking to the U.S. border and sadly, 20,000 migrant children were smuggled across the border often at the hands of human smugglers.
For someone who claims to be such a champion of women, Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to protect women both north and south of the border.
As if it weren’t enough to deny there is a crisis, Democrats are also lying about President Trump’s proposed solution.
Democrats would have you believe Trump has ignorantly only asked for a wall — but that is factually incorrect as well.
Trump’s proposal goes beyond a simple wall — it includes $211 million to hire nearly 1,000 more Border Patrol agents; $4.2 billion for 52,000 additional beds for migrants, long with the personnel, transportation and detention alternatives; $571 million for 2,000 additional ICE personnel; and $563 million for additional immigration judges and support staff to handle the aforementioned 800,000 cases.
What’s “immoral” about that?
Nothing.
President Trump is doing the best he can do with the crisis he inherited during his first two years in office, when asylum requests skyrocketed 1,700 percent over the number during President Barack Obama’s administration. Unlike Obama, Trump simply seeks to solve the problem.
As for Pelosi’s claim that the immigration crisis is manufactured, here is a timely reminder as yet another caravan of thousands more migrants head to the U.S. border: the only thing that needs to be manufactured here is a wall, a fence or a similar barrier to keep Americans safe once and for all.
Jen Kerns (@JenKernsUSA) served as spokeswoman for the California Republican Party; spokeswoman for California’s Proposition 8, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court; and as a Fox News writer for the 2016 U.S. presidential debates.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.