Obama Opens Borders, Releases Illegal Immigrants Into U.S.

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

As the non-stop flood of illegal immigrants continues to pour across the Rio Grande, some are calling the boundary between the United States and Texas an “open border.” Furthermore, instead of deporting most of these illegal border crossers — many of whom are from Central America — federal officials have been releasing them within the U.S. interior.

A large number of those traveling from Central America to our southern border are unaccompanied children. The Obama administration has estimated that 60,000 children unaccompanied by parents or relatives will pour into the United States this year, up from about 6,000 in 2011.

Among those who are highly critical of our government’s virtual open-border policies is Albert Spratte, the sergeant-at-arms of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) Local 3307 in the Rio Grande Valley. A June 23 National Review Online article attributed an amazing observation to Spratte: “There are two types of illegal immigrants crossing the border: those whom Border Patrol catches and those who catch Border Patrol.” Journalist Ryan Lovelace, who accompanied Spratte on patrol, witnessed a man emerging from the brush only to surrender to Spratte. The man said he had traveled 15 days from El Salvador and was headed to California to do some remodeling work. Though he still carried paperwork ordering him to appear in court several years ago, the man nevertheless did not fear prosecution or deportation, but assumed that immigration officials would safely guide him to his destination!

Spratte told Lovelace that a group of nearly 300 Central Americans had recently turned themselves in to U.S. officials.

“Next week 300 is going to be nothing,” said Spratte. “It’ll be 500 or 400 until they make the decision to start enforcing our immigration laws and deporting people.”

In our June 20 article, we quoted another member of the NBPC, Stu Harris, vice president of the union’s Local 1929 in El Paso, Texas. Speaking with Breitbart Texas (the section of Breitbart.com dedicated to covering Texas news), Harris shared his views on the vast increase in illegal cross-border traffic: “This situation is de facto amnesty. The word has gotten out that we will simply release people into the US if enough of them come at once. The result is that they are doing it.”

A June report from KRGV News in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas that we cited recently noted that a Guatemalan woman named Nora Griselda Bercian Diaz had crossed the border illegally with her six-year-old daughter. Bercian Diaz related to KRGV that people back in Guatemala had told her: “Go to America with your child; you won’t be turned away.”

Bercian Diaz told the news crew that when the reporters encountered her, she and her daughter were lost and searching for Border Patrol agents!

It is obvious from these reports that failing to secure the passage of legislation offering amnesty to illegal immigrants (under the guise of “a path to citizenship”), the Obama administration is offering it anyway. Otherwise, why would illegal immigrants seek out Border Patrol agents instead of hiding from them?

In response to the massive migration of illegal aliens into our nation, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) posted a statement on his Senate webpage on June 3 carrying the headline: “President Obama is personally responsible for ‘rising crisis’ at border.” His message began:

The rising crisis at the border is the direct and predictable result of actions taken by President Obama. He and his Administration have announced to the world that they will not enforce America’s immigration laws, and have emphasized in particular that foreign youth will be exempted from these laws. The world has heard the President’s call, and illegal immigrants are pouring across the border in pursuit of his promised amnesty. President Obama is responsible for this calamity, and only by declaring to the world that our border is no longer open — and that the law will be restored — can this emergency be stopped.

Sessions listed both humanitarian and budgetary reasons for holding the Obama administration responsible for creating the crisis in the first place — then spending large amounts of money to remedy its symptoms. He stated the incentive for crossing our border illegally — citizenship — must be removed:

Adding to the incentive, politicians in both parties have promised citizenship for anyone in the world who arrives illegally in the country by a certain age. The first overriding goal must always be to reduce lawlessness, not incentivize it.

Sessions noted that even the New York Times has reported that the Obama administration’s lack of enforcement has become widely known throughout Latin America, saying that the United States might as well hang a sign saying “open” across the U.S. border.

If immigration officials are not deporting or detaining those who cross our border illegally, what are they doing with them? In a June 23 report, AP’s immigration reporter Alicia Caldwell noted that the Obama administration has released a large number of illegal immigrant families from Central America in recent months, but — despite the fact the officials know how many they have released — they won’t reveal that information.

When Caldwell called the Homeland Security deputy secretary’s office on June 20 to obtain figures about the releases, she was told: “We will get back to you.”

The AP report listed numerous occasions when U.S. officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas dodged all questions concerning the number of illegal immigrants released.

The figure is widely believed to exceed 40,000 since October, noted Caldwell, which is “slightly below the roughly 52,000 children caught traveling illegally from Central America over the same period.” Those figures closely match the administration estimates we cited above of 60,000 unaccompanied children who will pour into the United States this year.

The report noted that most of the immigrant families are from Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala and cannot be immediately deported, so U.S. officials have been releasing them into the U.S. interior with instructions to report within 15 days to the nearest U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office. We saw how that works out, however, when the Salvadoran man who voluntarily surrendered to Border Patrol Agent Spratte still carried paperwork ordering him to appear in court several years ago, and yet fearlessly crossed the border illegally once more.

With our borders open and armies of illegal immigrants who have traveled up to 2,000 miles to cross them, this situation can only be described as an invasion. Since that is the case, it is time for Congress to fulfill its mandate found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution: “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”

Article IV, Section 4 also states, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.”

The Constitution is clear: It is time for Congress to pass legislation requiring the federal government to repel the invasion.