A surge in Fentanyl trafficking and rampant illegal immigration is affecting every state in the nation—not just those directly impacted by our weakened borders.
A border crisis can result in a myriad of consequences—all of which are negative. Since his inauguration, America has been in the grip of a border crisis, even though President Joe Biden’s administration has been loath to call it that. But in case you’re missing the daily news reports of migrants crossing the Rio Grande, of illegal immigrants being released without any court date to return for, of children being dropped over the border wall by child smugglers, of border towns being overrun by illegal immigrants, there is a crisis at the southern border, one that’s growing worse, not better, as we approach the midpoint of 2021 and the summer months.
That crisis is surfacing in two particularly toxic ways. First, it is resulting in an explosion of drug smuggling—particularly with deadly fentanyl. And second, it is resulting, as others have phrased it, in “every state in the country is now a border state” because the illegal immigrants streaming into Texas and Arizona and California aren’t just staying there. The Biden administration is moving them all across America, at your expense.
So if you think the crisis isn’t real for you if you live in Pennsylvania, think again. President Biden has brought the border to your doorstep—along with the drugs.
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Southern border crisis.[/caption]
A CRISIS OF BIDEN’S OWN MAKING
What is amazing is that the administration can’t even bring itself to call this a crisis. In the world of Twelve Step addiction treatment, it is called “denial,” when someone is incapable of recognizing the depths of his or her problem and insists that there really is no problem at all. The Biden administration exists in a deep and perplexing state of denial that pervades the government and is faithfully echoed by much of the mainstream media.
His use of the word 'crisis' prompted Biden’s handlers to reel in the President.
Prickly White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, always accustomed to those softball questions from the friendly mainstream media, appeared quite irate when she was directly asked if there was a crisis at the border during a March 2nd briefing. “Well, I would say I don’t think we need to meet your bar of what we need to call it. We had the Secretary of Homeland Security yesterday conveying it’s a challenge. We’ve provided numbers publicly about how serious that challenge is,” Psaki said to the White House press corps. “We, of course, because we are approaching this humanely, and we are approaching this in a way where we will keep the children safe … but again we’re going to approach this without labeling” (emphasis mine).
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has also steadfastly claimed that there is no crisis at the southern border, choosing instead to use that ultimate weasel word to describe the growing chaos: he called it “a challenge,” and claiming that the Trump administration “gutted” the refugee process during a March 1st briefing to the Washington media.
The talking points have been carefully written and are being faithfully read.
In early April, during a moment of apparent weakness, President Biden finally admitted there was a crisis at the border. After the first golf outing of his presidency, Biden spoke briefly with reporters and used the word in response to a question on the refugee cap: "We’re going to increase the number [of refugees]," the President said. "The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people. We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number."
His use of the word “crisis” prompted Biden’s handlers to reel in the President. "No, there is no change in position. Children coming to our border seeking refuge from violence, economic hardships, and other dire circumstances is not a crisis," a White House official informed CNN.
Before examining just how bleak the situation is at the border, it is essential to understand President Biden’s role in the crisis. The President is exhibiting the political equivalent of self-harm, deliberately slashing at America’s border security and creating a situation that is desultory at best, demonstrably dangerous at worst.
President Biden’s soft-on-border-security policies ... haven’t just had a devastating effect on the number of humans being trafficked across our southern border; they've had an effect on the inflow of drugs as well.
President Biden ordered the construction of the border wall to cease within a week of his inauguration, claiming that "building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security," and mandated that "It shall be the policy of my administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall. I am also directing a careful review of all resources appropriated or redirected to construct a southern border wall." It is a wonder that Biden hasn’t ordered the complete removal of the structure—yet. Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump did not get the wall completed during his presidency, but he did make significant progress, despite chronic attempts by Congress to cut off funding for the project.
It is worth noting that the wall may not be an effective means of preventing drugs from coming across the border. Wall critics argue that drugs are being smuggled into America not at isolated sectors of the border, but at official ports of entry or through tunnels that would not be stopped by a wall. “A lot of the drugs that move across through the border are hidden in legal cargo,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution. “There is not a way to avoid that,” she told FiveThirtyEight.
Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, agreed with Felbab-Brown: “A wall alone cannot stop the flow of drugs into the United States,” he told Vox. “If we’re talking about a broader increase in border security, there could be some—probably minor—implications for the overall numbers of drugs being trafficked.”
“But history shows us that border enforcement has been much more effective at changing the when and where of drugs being brought into the United States rather than the overall amount of drugs being brought into the United States,” he added. Meaning President Biden’s soft-on-border-security policies—including termination of the wall—haven’t just had a devastating effect on the number of humans being trafficked across our southern border; they've had an effect on the inflow of drugs as well.
Instead of taking on these issues head-on, and taking a tougher stance on border security, the Biden administration has opted for a circuitous “root cause” approach. As President, Biden has decided that “irregular migration,” a phrase right out of talking point hell, can be defeated by alleviating the problems in foreign countries that propel migrants to make the journey illegally into the U.S. He signed an Executive Order to that effect on February 2nd 2021.
Instead of taking on these issues head-on, and taking a tougher stance on border security, the Biden administration has opted for a circuitous ‘root cause’ approach.
And just how does Biden intend to solve the problems of Mexico, Central America and goodness where else? No indication whatsoever. Meanwhile, he’s been pushing for liberal immigration policies that have signaled to those living in said foreign countries that their prospects for amnesty are high under his regime.
In April, the President showed us just who was in charge when he reportedly flip-flopped on refugee policy. At first, the President overturned an initial decision to maintain the historically low level set by former President Donald Trump’s administration. But the White House reversed course the very same day, as Biden indicated that he now planned to establish a “final, increased” cap of more than 62,000 by May 15th. He issued a memorandum codifying that apparent reversal in May.
Also in May, the Democrats moved forward with legislation to support Biden’s plan to offer an eight-year plan for citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants already living in the United States; The U.S. Citizenship Act “eliminates restrictions on family-based immigration and expands worker visas,” the New York Times reports.
Is it any wonder then that we’ve seen a surge in “irregular migration?” The Biden Harris Administration's strategy “to confront the instability, violence, and economic insecurity that currently drives migrants from their homes" has one major blind spot: it ignores the incentives created by his own policies that are enticing migrants and coyotes alike.
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Jalisco New Generation Cartel.[/caption]
THE CRISIS SPREADS BEYOND THE BORDER STATES
Drugs continue to pour across the now-porous border, with the massive amount of seizures indicating just how much of the toxic substance must be escaping detection. According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), so much Fentanyl has been seized by border patrol agents during the current fiscal year that it already exceeds the amount impounded in the whole of last year. CBP revealed that they had grabbed 34% more Fentanyl in April than they had in March. CBP has also indicated that by weight, the Fentanyl seized at the southwestern border during the first quarter of 2021 is 233% higher than that found during the same period in 2020.
These same people become a burden to the healthcare system, are unable to work productively, or turn to criminal activity to support their habit.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is literally killing both the United States heartland and urban centers and devastating America. Fentanyl makes heroin or morphine seem almost safe by comparison when you consider that it is 50 to 100 times stronger than both, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Because many cases are not reported or not recognized, it is difficult to know exactly how many people are dying from Fentanyl use, but about 50,000 people in the United States died from an opioid-involved overdose in 2019. It’s not just lives being lost either. It’s the economic cost of having so many people addicted to drugs. These same people become a burden to the healthcare system, are unable to work productively, or turn to criminal activity to support their habit.
On May 28th, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said that President Joe Biden’s administration is ignoring a growing surge of deadly Fentanyl at the southern border and has “their heads in the ground.” The Biden administration is just as reticent to talk about the Fentanyl crisis at the border as it is to recognize the border crisis.
Thankfully, Abbott has no such hesitation: “Open-border Biden is what is bringing this in … I’ve got to tell you, I’m angry, but more importantly, we have farmers and ranchers and residents in those areas that are extremely angry,” Abbott told Fox News.
The governor added that “most of this Fentanyl does not stay in Texas” but is being distributed nationwide. Which leads us to the other half of the border crisis: rampant and unregulated illegal immigration that is making every state in the nation vulnerable, not just those directly impacted by our weakened borders.
Last month, former Department of Homeland Security Acting Director Chad Wolf told Fox News that, “There are too many minors in custody for the amount of facilities that they have, so what do they have to do? They then have to move those individuals to other parts of the country.” Wolf continued, insisting “that every city, every state in the country is now a border state and a border community because they are pushing these populations all across the country because they have broken the system.”
'We are subsidizing human trafficking of children and adults,' — Fox News investigative reporter Lara Logan.
Fox News investigative reporter Lara Logan went even further and said that not only is the Biden administration allowing illegal immigrants to fan out across America, they are forcing taxpayers to finance this madness: “We are subsidizing human trafficking of children and adults: men and women,” Logan told Fox News in April.
“The administration uses taxpayer dollars—your money, my money—every taxpayer in America. When they use their funds to transport these kids all over the country and send them into different markets, different areas first to live in for the cartels, different markets for sex trafficking and other cartel activity,” Logan said.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is also on the case. Blackburn told Fox News on May 21st that the federal government is moving migrant children into her state, without notice, and transferring costs to state and local governments. “This is a violation of Tennessee's 10th Amendment right. No one was notified; not your state, your federal, your local officials. And no one knew that this was happening. And see what they are doing with having had a half-million already apprehended at the border this year, and they're from 160 different countries, what they are trying to do is make it appear the border is under control.” Migrants, Blackburn said, were being flown into Tennessee by federal authorities and left there:
“So they are flying them without anyone's awareness and in different areas, bussing them to cities and shelters or to people that are supposedly going to be their sponsors. … This needs to stop right now. It is not fair to the taxpayers who are footing the bill for what happens from the time someone approaches one of our Border Patrol at the border.”
Not fair? This is insanity. The Biden administration can transport illegal immigrants from the border to Tennessee, but it cannot think of transporting them back to where they came from? Never mind the priorities of this government; where is the ability to think rationally?
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Fentanyl.[/caption]
WITH WEAK EXECUTIVE ACTION, A BORDER CATASTROPHE LOOMS
We began this column by pointing out that a border crisis produces consequences that are entirely negative. Well, that’s not entirely true. Some people are benefiting from this chaos; some people are enjoying a payday during this catastrophe while rejoicing that a man named Joe Biden is running America now and not Donald Trump. Those people are the criminal cartels who are amassing billions in profits from the border crisis.
There’s a relatively easy out for President Biden on this issue: admit he made a mistake, acknowledge that Trump might have been right on border policy, and begin to return to a sane border policy.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) visited the border in March, and he came back with an unvarnished assessment of the situation: “What people need to understand is these are criminal organizations,” Cornyn told Fox News, adding that “they trade in things that make them money, whether it’s trafficking and sex, women and children for sex, whether it’s drugs, illegal drugs… which killed 70,000 Americans just in the last couple of years on an annual basis.”
Sen. John Katko (R-NY) provided a similar description when he returned home from his trip to the southern border: “There’s no question it’s a human tragedy and a tragedy that didn’t have to happen,” Katko said.“The big winners in this are the coyotes and the drug traffickers.” He continued: “When you give people [in] desperate situations false hope, this is what happens. The President has given false hope by signaling that he will relax the immigration standards. The people, the big winners in this whole thing, are the coyotes and the drug trafficking organizations. They’re smuggling the people to the border.”
This is an unmitigated humanitarian crisis—a border crisis.
There’s a relatively easy out for President Biden on this issue: admit he made a mistake, acknowledge that Trump might have been right on border policy, and begin to return to a sane border policy. But he’s shown almost no interest no interest in doing so. As he continues to promote trillions in dollars in spending for his endless list of pet projects, the President seems to think the situation is well in hand under Vice President Kamala Harris—a border czar without any inclination or expertise to implement constructive policies. (Ironically, her communications team is now trying to distance their boss from the job the President gave her.)
Likely, the real powers behind the Biden presidency almost certainly want it this way, as eager Democratic voters continue to arrive in time for potential legislation that will make elections not just vulnerable to fraud but intrinsically fraudulent.
But if action is not taken soon, the border crisis will soon develop into a border catastrophe, and an even greater tragedy for those most immediately affected: hard-working American citizens. They will be left wondering why America suddenly has a government that is paying people to stay home and not work while rolling out the red carpet for illegal immigrants and ignoring a boom in a corrosive drug epidemic that is already eroding the foundations of American life.
