Opinion

KOVACH: Biden’s Body Count

Wet clothes sit along the river where migrants have crossed from Mexico into Del Rio, Texas (Jennie Taer//Daily caller News Foundation)

Ron Kovach Contributor
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When presidential candidate Joe Biden was on the campaign trail in 2020, he touted that his immigration agenda would “direct enforcement efforts toward threats to public safety and national security, while ensuring that individuals are treated with the due process to which they are entitled and their human rights are protected.”

Two years into his term, he has ensured the exact opposite for not only Americans, but also anyone capitalizing on his open borders policy agenda. President Biden’s abrupt ending of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, refusal to enforce immigration laws in the interior of the country, and order to halt border wall construction have caused public outrage and human misery. Whether we look to the tragic human smuggling atrocity that occurred in San Antonio, the increase in crime in the U.S., or the emboldening of drug cartels internationally, Biden’s policies have penned the death certificates of countless individuals.

This week, Americans watched in horror as it was revealed that over 50 men, women and children were left to die in the back of an abandoned tractor trailer in San Antonio. The conditions were so unimaginable that authorities claim that the bodies they recovered were “hot to the touch.” Is this the vision that Biden had in mind when he said he would protect human rights? By ending the MPP and having no viable replacement, migrants understand that if they reach our borders they can stay without penalty. This, on top of offering voting rightscash paymentsfree college and eventual amnesty makes an offer to come illegally hard to refuse.

Contributing to the porousness of our border is the Biden administration’s weakening of our internal mechanisms to return migrants with illegitimate claims to their homelands. By-the-book judges who would order dangerous migrants to return to their homeland are being replaced with pro-amnesty judges.

One of the biggest threats to public safety and national security we face are drug cartels taking advantage of the chaos at our border with Mexico. CBP statistics show, “More than 90% of the 10,000 pounds of fentanyl seized in fiscal 2021 occurred at legal border entry points in California and Arizona — areas where roughly 30% of migrants are entering the US. Meanwhile, in areas like New Mexico and Texas, where border agents are overwhelmed with migrant entries, there have been fewer seizures — less than five percent.” Almost all fentanyl in the United States comes through our southern border. During the same time, over 105,000 overdose deaths were reported in the US, many due to fentanyl overdoses. There is an obvious conclusion that the more open our border becomes, the more deadly it is for Americans and the more profitable it is for cartels.

Biden could decide to take his campaign promise to heart. Without life-saving measures on border security, the death toll from this crisis will continue to rise. Ending immigration enforcement mechanisms emboldens smugglers, criminals, and traffickers and increases the risk to migrants who depend on them for transport. Whether a migrant is a cartel-hired truck driver smuggling human cargo or the person in pursuit of a better life stuffed into the back of a stifling tractor trailer, Biden’s open border policies provide the impetus to take the chance. Enforcing our existing laws, cracking down on asylum abuse, and ending catch and release are the only ways to curb this previously unimaginable humanitarian crisis right on our doorstep.

Ron Kovach is press secretary at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)