It used to be that when illegal aliens made it across our border with Mexico, they’d flee as fast and as far as they could from any Border Patrol agent. Now, by the thousands, they’re eager to be caught. What on earth has changed?
In the old days, those coming in illegally knew that they and their children would be deported just as quickly as they were caught. Today, thousands of women believe that if their children can get here, they’ll be allowed to stay, as part of some sort of “amnesty” deal. And they don’t just get to remain in this country; heck, they’ll even be provided with food, medical care and a place to stay.
Tens of thousands of people have believed these promises. As a result, we’re now seeing a flood of children pouring across the border, particularly in Texas. In 2011, roughly 7,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended trying to enter this country. In 2012, that number doubled to 14,000. Last year, it climbed to 24,000.
Now, the numbers have skyrocketed. In just the first half of this year, the number of unaccompanied minors sneaking into the United States soared to more than 40,000. The Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for protecting our borders, estimates that the number could pass 90,000 by the end of this year. And they say it could reach an astounding 145,000 next year.
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The Texas Department of Public Safety reports that in only one week, from May 28 to June 4, in just the Rio Grande Valley, the Border Patrol caught more than 8,300 illegal aliens who had made it across the border. Again, that’s the count for just one week and in just one part of Texas.
This is an invasion, pure and simple. There is simply no other word for it. And unless it is stopped, the America we know and love will cease to exist.
The problem has gotten so bad that the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for processing deportations of illegal immigrants, can’t keep up. Because the detention facilities in South Texas are already filled to overflowing, some detainees are being sent to converted warehouses and military bases in Arizona and California.
Many others are simply being released and asked to come back in a few weeks. Can you imagine that? Rather than being put on a bus and taken out of this country, they are being driven to a bus stop, given a prepaid ticket to somewhere else and asked to come back when it’s more convenient. How many people do you think will obey that request?
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has written President Barack Obama, protesting the Administration’s policy of dumping many of these illegals on her State. The last I heard she had not been given the courtesy of a reply from the White House. And of course, the policy hasn’t been changed.
We’re told that most of these new illegal immigrants are not Mexicans. They’re coming from further south in Central America — particularly Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Those countries are 1,800 miles away from our southern border. So let me ask a couple of obvious questions: How on earth are those thousands of women and children getting to our border? Does anyone seriously suggest they have walked all the way?
It’s hard to imagine even healthy young adults making that trek, across some very inhospitable terrain. But we’re supposed to believe that pregnant women and young children have done so? Impossible!
It’s equally ridiculous to suggest that these tens of thousands of impoverished aliens have paid thousands of dollars to smugglers to transport them. They don’t have the funds to do so.
So I repeat: How have they managed to get from Central America to our border with Mexico? Have people in their governments conspired to help them? Are some Mexican officials in league with them? It’s hard to believe this is all “just happening.” It sure smells like there’s a criminal conspiracy at work here.
And what is Mexico’s role in all of this? How does it happen that tens of thousands of aliens somehow are able to travel 1,800 miles across their country without anyone being aware of it or doing anything about it? I smell a very big rat at work here.
We’ve been told that Vice President Joe Biden is flying to Guatemala later this week to meet with Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina and senior officials from Honduras and El Salvador to see what can be done to stem this criminal invasion. Apparently, Biden will bring with him some offers of “enhanced” support from the U.S. for the three countries, if they’ll help keep tens of thousands of their citizens from sneaking into our country.
Lots of luck with that, Joe.
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is one of many Republican legislators who say that the blame for this crisis can be laid squarely at Obama’s feet. Sessions issued a statement June 3, stating:
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.
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be much chance of this happening.
Meanwhile, Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi continues to languish in a Mexican jail, where he’s been held since March 31. That’s when he missed a very obscure street sign and accidentally drove into the country. Because he was carrying three guns (all of which were legally registered in the United States), he was arrested by Mexican police and tossed into the hoosegow, where he remains to this day.
Yet Mexican troops and police stray across our border all the time without anyone making a fuss about it.
Personal Liberty’s Sam Rolley reported:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske told Representative Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) in a letter that the “incursions” are “infrequent” — but the commissioner added that they happen frequently enough for the U.S. to have created special units to deal with the situation.
Kerlikowske said that a total of 525 Mexican law enforcement and military personnel have wandered into the United States in about 152 separate instances since 2004. In 81 instances, involving about 320 of the armed non-Americans, contact was made with U.S. Border agents. In 131 of those cases people were detained.
If there’s one good thing that’s come out of the present crisis, it’s that so-called immigration reform is stone-cold dead, at least for now. The defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary in Virginia last week added an important nail to that coffin.
There’s been a lot of discussion about why voters in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District gave the boot to Cantor, the guy who had represented the district for six terms, and instead made Dave Brat the victor. Certainly, Cantor’s reputation for being aloof, arrogant and out of touch didn’t help him.
Neither did his financial profligacy. One wag pointed out that the Cantor campaign spent more on steak dinners than Brat did in his entire campaign. The numbers are simply astounding: Cantor raised more than $5 million for his campaign; Brat raised less than $250,000.
Brat made Cantor’s support of the bank bailout bill a key part of his campaign.
“All the investment banks up in New York and Washington or whatever, those guys should have gone to jail,” Brat told a May 7 gathering of the Mechanicsville Tea Party. “Instead of going to jail, where’d they go? They went onto Eric’s Rolodex. That’s where they all are, and they’re sending him big checks.”
That stung. But nothing hurt Cantor as much as the accusation that he was working with Obama to provide some sort of amnesty to illegal immigrants. Talk show hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin hammered this point again and again. At the same time, the television screens were filled every night with pictures of the flood of people, many of them children, pouring across our border in Texas.
Cantor was so confidant of any easy victory that he didn’t even bother to come to his district on the day of the primary. Instead, he was meeting with potential contributors in Washington. When the votes were counted, Brat shocked all of the pundits by beating Cantor by an 11-point margin.
So we can say goodbye to Cantor and to the amnesty for illegals that Obama and his liberal cronies have been demanding. And we can say hello to increased demands that we must stop the illegal invasion of this country. Let’s hope Congress gets the message.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his Straight Talk column appears weekly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
