By Allan Wall, December 15, 2020
Illegal border crossings on the U.S.-Mexican border do not exist in a vacuum. They are driven by various factors, including U.S. enforcement policies and the foreign perceptions of said policies, economics, and politics in Mexico and Central America, and even the weather.
Most importantly, foreigners will enter the U.S. illegally if they think they can get away with it.
Thus, at the beginning of the Trump administration there was a decrease in illegal crossings due to the perception that President Donald J. Trump was tough on the border. In February of 2017, the number of illegal would-be crossers fell to its lowest level in five years.
After that, crossings increased again. But eventually the Trump administration was able to drastically reduce both illegal and legal crossings of the border.
Using his foreign policy authority, Trump pressured Mexico to decrease illegal crossings into its own territory, which reduced the pool of Central Americans (and others) arriving to the southern U.S. border. Another policy forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, not on U.S. territory. Hundreds of miles of border wall have been constructed by the Trump administration. And, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has greatly reduced even legal border crossings.
But now, illegal crossings are rising again, since months before the November election even.
In October, there were 30% more detentions than in September.
And, detentions of minors were up, jumping from 712 in April to 4,630 in October.
If this is occurring under a Trump administration, what if Joe Biden and company take office on January 20th? What can we expect then?
Biden has pledged to deport no one for the first 100 days after being inaugurated, to rescind Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, and to enact a massive illegal alien amnesty.
In Mexico and Central America people pay close attention to U.S. immigration policy. Biden’s promises give a green light to would-be-crossers of the border.
Already, in Central America, they’ve been trying to form “caravans” again. Remember the caravans? Masses of people would march from Central America, through Mexico, to the U.S. border.
Is this the beginning of a mass “Biden Rush” to the border?
Even the Mainstream Media has taken note of this. A recent New York Times piece is entitled As Biden Prepares to Take Office, a New Rush at the Border .
It begins thusly: “The president-elect has promised a more humane border policy. But devastated economies and natural disasters in Latin America have fueled a spike in migration that could make pledges hard to keep.”
Unfairly to the American electorate, immigration was mostly ignored during the election. Even the Trump campaign didn’t make too big a deal out of it, even though the Trump administration had accomplishments of which it could rightly boast.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to see how a mass rush on the border would be popular with voters.
Furthermore, is it fair to lock American citizens down for COVID-19 while simultaneously allowing thousands of foreigners, some of whom probably have COVID-19, to enter the United States?
As for the job market, shouldn’t American jobs go to American citizens first?
The New York Post reports that even Joe Biden’s advisory team is concerned about what might transpire on the border.
The Post begins its article thusly: “President-elect Joe Biden will take office amid a surge in detentions at the Mexican border, reportedly prompting his advisers to consider keeping some Trump administration immigration policies to avoid inspiring an even bigger rush.”
The Post continues … ”The uptick threatens Biden’s promises to propose amnesty legislation and to adopt policies that defer deportation and allow applicants to await amnesty decisions in the US. The Wall Street Journal reports the transition team ‘has grown concerned’ and is ‘trying to decide which policies to change and when to avoid ‘creating the appearance of leniency.’ “
Let me get this straight. The Democrats repeatedly slammed Trump for his supposedly cruel immigration policy.
But now that they’re on the verge of power they might continue some of these supposedly cruel policies?
I guess Biden’s advisers realize that an open borders policy is not popular with the American people. And with good reason.
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