Illegal Border Crossings for October Climb to More than 46,000

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

A statement from Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson posted on the DHS website on November 10 noted that the number of illegal aliens apprehended trying to cross our southwest border rose to 46,195 in October, compared with 39,501 in September and 37,048 in August.

A report in the Washington Times observed that this was the highest number of illegal border crossings since the surge of illegal immigrant children in the summer of 2014.

Johnson’s statement reported that within the higher number of apprehensions at the border, DHS has seen “corresponding increases in the numbers of unaccompanied children and individuals in families apprehended.” DHS has “also seen increases in the numbers of those who present themselves at ports of entry along the southwest border seeking asylum.”

Johnson’s response to this large influx of illegal border crossings sounded very tough:

Our borders cannot be open to illegal migration. We must, therefore, enforce the immigration laws consistent with our priorities. Those priorities are public safety and border security. Specifically, we prioritize the deportation of undocumented immigrants who are convicted of serious crimes and those apprehended at the border attempting to enter the country illegally. Recently, I have reiterated to our Enforcement and Removal personnel that they must continue to pursue these enforcement activities.

Those who attempt to enter our country without authorization should know that, consistent with our laws and our values, we must and we will send you back.

The statement closed with an appeal to those contemplating illegal entry across our borders “to pursue the various safe and legal paths available for those in need of humanitarian protection in the United States.”

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In response to Johnson’s tough rhetoric, which represents a departure from the pro-amnesty policies that the DHS under President Obama has practiced for some time, Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, asserted that Johnson is acknowledging the problem only after its exposure by whistleblowers at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Vaughan said that Johnson’s statement that the border isn’t open to illegal immigrants “is thoroughly insincere and meaningless.”

“If he wanted to put a stop to it, he could, but he has made it obvious that the administration is not interested in doing so, only in putting on a show of enforcement,” said Vaughan. “His robotic repetition of the administration’s enforcement priorities make it clear that the policy is for only the most egregious ‘worst of the worst’ criminal aliens to be removed, and no effort will be made to prevent other new arrivals from taking their place.”

Considering that Johnson noted the increase in the numbers of those who present themselves at ports of entry along our southwest border seeking asylum, one wonders if the secretary has even considered how our policies have encouraged such mass migration.

For example, as we wrote in June 2014:

A June [2014] 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 his role as DHS secretary, Johnson has been the Obama administration’s principal point man to issue orders granting amnesty from deportation to large number of illegal aliens, especially under the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program. Johnson described DAPA in his November 20, 2014 memorandum that expanded DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), which was initiated in 2012 by a policy memorandum sent from former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. It removed DACA’s age cap and also extended work authorization for some illegal aliens who have been granted legal status to three years. Both secretaries issued these memoranda because Congress had repeatedly refused to pass the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, which was first introduced in the Senate in 2001. The DREAM Act would have granted amnesty and conditional residency to certain illegal aliens who entered the Unied States prior to the age of 16.

After the DREAM Act failed to be approved by several Congresses, President Obama announced on June 15, 2012, that his administration would stop deporting young undocumented individuals who met certain criteria previously proposed under the DREAM ACT. These exemptions from deportation were initiated under the DACA program (as noted above) and expanded by Johnson’s DAPA memorandum.

The DAPA program was put on hold after a number of states filed suit in federal court to stop it. In the case of United States v. Texas, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville issued an injunction on February 16, 2015 that blocked it.

The Obama administration’s DOJ appealed the ruling, and the appeal went all the way to the Supreme Court. Had Justice Antonin Scalia not died in February, it is likely that the Supreme Court would have upheld Hanen’s injunction outright by a 5-4 vote, but as it turned out, the court’s 4-4 tie still let the injunction stand.

With the election of Donald Trump, who has promised to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court who shares Scalia’s strict construction of the Constitution, a well as Trump’s promise to roll back many of the Obama administration’s executive decrees, the DAPA amnesty program is as good as dead.

One can only surmise that Johnson’s latest statements promising that his department will enforce our immigration laws and get serious about deporting illegal aliens are but an eleventh-hour effort to polish up his tarnished reputation for being a champion of amnesty before he leaves office in January.