Better late than never. Finally, President Trump woke up the Mexicans and said they better stop the mass migration of illegal aliens from Central America. In early June, he threatened tariffs of five percent, and increasing to 25 percent, if the siege continued. Mexico quickly promised, as the Washington Post called it, an “unprecedented crackdown.”

What that will mean in practice is anyone’s guess, but at least Trump made his point. He won’t let illegal aliens erase the borders of the United States.

And erasing it they have been. Some 670,000 illegals crossed the border between October, the beginning of fiscal 2019, and May.

That terrifying number, fast approaching 700,000, invites some obvious practical questions, such as how many murderers or tuberculosis cases crossed the border, and where the government is housing and feeding the horde. But more abstractly, it invites another. Given that hard-left Democrats and Deep State globalists want to keep the border open to permit the entry of future voters who could permanently alter the country politically, and given that Trump has done little, promises notwithstanding, to stop the invasion, does the border mean anything? That is, does a real nation with a sense of its history and purpose permit an invasion force the size of a midsize American city to cross its frontier illegally every two months?

In his 1973 dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints, French author Jean Raspail imagined the Third World’s demographic conquest of Europe in nearly the fashion it is occurring. Now, the conquerors are coming here.

The Raw Numbers and Why They Come

Calling the number of illegals who have crossed the border since October “terrifying” is something of an understatement. In May, the number was 144,278. In April, they numbered 109,144, and in March 103,719.

So in three months, 357,031 crossed — more than the previous five months combined. Total for fiscal 2019? 676,315. To put the numbers in perspective, in March, April, and May combined, a city about the size of Santa Ana, California, crossed the southwest border and settled in the United States. Going back to October, a city the size of Baltimore, Maryland, packed up and moved here. 

Almost all the “migrants,” officials say, are from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and almost all cross the border for one reason: to improve their lives. They are not, as the open-borders Left says, “fleeing violence.” Nor do they “fear persecution.” In January, the Trump administration reported that 90 percent of asylum claims are phony, and as The New American has reported repeatedly on its website, illegals admit the truth not only to researchers but also to reporters. 

A report in September 2018 from the Institute for Defense Analysis and National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events at the University of Southern California showed that illegals are not running from violence or persecution. Rather, they want a new life in the United States. “Long-term illegal migration to the United States of adults from Northern Triangle countries has primarily been driven by economic motivations,” the report said, and “the primary motivations of juvenile migrants from 2011 to the present are economic opportunities and reunification with family that migrated previously.”

The authors interviewed illegals and tabulated answers to conclude they migrate for jobs and money. The numbers break down as follows:

In 2016 and 2017, nearly 100 percent of the Guatemalan migrants whom Mexico deported told the researchers they headed north for economic reasons. Of 871 interviewed in 2016, just three cited violence as the reason for coming to the United States. In 2017, none did.

For Hondurans in those two years, the numbers were similar: 98 percent of 1,435 surveyed and 97 percent of 403 surveyed. In 2016, for El Salvador, 98 percent of the 2,588 migrants cited economic reasons for leaving home. In 2017, it was 74 percent of 642 migrants.

Nor were the numbers different for those whom U.S. authorities turned away. In 2016, 91 percent of 1,625 Guatemalans came for economic reasons. In 2017, the number was 95 percent of 723.

For Honduras, it was 96 percent both years for totals of 837 and 341 migrants. And 97 percent of  2,016 Salvadoran migrants in 2016 claimed economic reasons for leaving home. In 2017, it was 73 percent of 798 migrants.

Nor have migrants been shy about admitting the truth to mainstream media reporters. “I got no choice,” a Guatemalan told Fox News. “I got to work for a living.” Another Guatemalan told the Associated Press, “We only want to work and if a job turns up in Mexico, I would do it. We would do anything.”

“It’s time for me to go back to the United States,” a Guatemalan told the Washington Post. “It’s a country where I can live my life, unlike Guatemala.”

“That’s just how it is,” a six-time Honduran deportee told the Post. “They catch you and you try to get back.” Said a three-time deportee, “We are workers. What are we supposed to do in Honduras if there’s no work?”

These facts comport with what the Trump administration reported in January. “Over the last five years we have seen a 2,000% increase in asylum claims, yet 72% of migrants report making the journey for economic reasons and therefore would not typically qualify for asylum.” Thus, “only 1 in 10 asylum claims [is] granted for persons from Northern Triangle countries.” Turning that figure around means, again, that at least 90 percent of asylum claims are bogus.

If true, then 608,683 did not cross the border out of fear of living in the Northern Triangle, but instead because they want a job, free medical care, and a free American education for their children.

Children, of course, provide the illegals their pass into the country, officials say. The illegals know that arriving as a “family unit” means immigration authorities will release them into the country. That provides the incentive to lie about not just seeking asylum, but also being part of a family. Illegals carry false birth certificates and other forms of identification, and smugglers, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reported, are “renting” children to send across the border with adults who are not their parents. And those children, border officials report, might be recycled, i.e., sent back across the border only to return with another “family.”

“It’s well-known at this time that adults with children will not be detained during the immigration proceedings for illegal entry,” said CBP operations chief Brian Hastings in March. “The word of mouth and social media quickly gets back to those in the Northern Triangle countries, that if you bring a child you’ll be successful.”

Speaking to Maria Bartiromo of CNBC in April, Aaron Hull, chief of the El Paso Sector of the border, said likewise. “Those people realize that as long as they’re being apprehended by us, they are still likely to be released on their own recognizance,” Hull told Bartiromo. “That’s because the country, the U.S. government as a whole, does not have the detention and removal capability to hold them in custody until their immigration hearing.”

In other words, they want to be caught. 

Dumping Them

But “releasing” them doesn’t just mean letting them out the front door of the border station. Immigration authorities have dumped 200,000 illegals into communities across the southwest, Breitbart.com reported in May. 

During an eight-day stretch in mid May, Breitbart reported, the Department of Homeland Security dumped 9,000 illegals into unsuspecting American cities, which “indicates that at least 1,100 border crossers and illegal aliens have been released into the country every day in the past week.”

Often, federal immigration authorities are “busing border crossers into nearby border cities and dropping them off with the hope that they show up for their immigration and asylum hearings. The overwhelming majority of border crossers and illegal aliens are never deported from the country once they are released into the U.S.”

Breitbart reported that most of that 9,000-strong horde — about 5,000 — was dumped on El Paso, while 1,900 went to San Antonio, 1,600 to Phoenix, and 500 to San Diego. 

“Since December 21, 2018, the Trump administration has released 177,600 border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the U.S. — the majority have been dropped off in San Antonio, where 69,200 have been released, and El Paso, where 61,500 have been released,” Breitbart reported.

Among the planned targets of the dumping operation, a continuation of catch and release that Trump vowed to end, was Florida. The plan called for sending 1,000 a month. Vociferous local opposition put the kibosh on the plan.

Sick and Diseased

Floridians, including open-borders GOP Senator Marco Rubio, who also opposed the plan, knew what was coming: diseased and criminal aliens.

That thousands of the illegals are sick, or carry contagious diseases that could spread like the plague either in federal holding facilities, or, say, public schools, is beyond dispute. When 6,000 illegal aliens landed in Tijuana in November in one of the first major caravans to hit the border, Fox News reported, Mexican officials found that more than a third, 2,267, were sick.

Officials confirmed multiple cases of tuberculosis, four cases of AIDS, and chicken pox. 

They also carried “skin infections,” likely due to lice, and Chagas disease. Lice is the vector for typhus but is relatively rare. That isn’t true of Chagas, a parasitic disease spread by the ubiquitous “kissing” bug. Six million to seven million people in Mexico, Central America, and South America have it, the World Health Organ-ization says. 

In February, public health authorities in Houston reported that seven illegals crossed the border with mumps, and at least two illegal aliens have died with the flu, one of whom spread it to the illegals in the holding facility, CBP reported.

The time border agents waste caring for sick and diseased vagrants — 25 to 40 percent of CBP manpower, Hastings said in March — is only a secondary problem. Such is the influx of immigrants that immigration authorities can’t possibly evaluate the health of the people they spray across the country. That means catch and release, dumping hordes of illegals into cities across the fruited plain, is likely infecting innocent Americans with dangerous pathogens.

Example: TB. Data from the National Center for Biotechnology Information published in 2017 show that 37,684 immigrants with TB entered the United States between 2005 and 2009. The most, 24.1 percent, or 9,098, came from Mexico. Another 1,154, or 3.1 percent, came from Guatemala, while 853, or 2.3 percent, came from Honduras, where the migrant invasion began.

But that’s TB generally. Of more concern are the multi-drug resistant (MDR) cases that came in: 482. Again, Mexico accounted for most of those: 66 or 13.7 percent, NCBI reported. Fourteen Guatemalans had the disease, accounting for about 3 percent. None, apparently, came from Honduras. MDR TB is a pressing concern, the Centers for Disease Control reports, because the bacterium is resistant to the two most powerful drugs used to treat it. 

American taxpayers, of course, foot the bill to treat these illegals. But they might just pay a stiffer price: Contracting one of the diseases and, perhaps, dying from it. 

The Crime

Yet another peril attendant to the dumping is the inundating of American communities not just with diseased illegals but with dangerous rapists, murderers, and garden-variety thugs. 

The number of sex fiends, such as child molesters, caught at the border, and specific cases of catch and release fortified by state or local sanctuary laws, demonstrates that immigration anarchy and the failure of elected officials to end it not only endangers the lives of Americans, but also in some cases proves deadly.

As TheNewAmerican.com has repeatedly reported, Border Patrol agents regularly catch previously deported sex criminals at the border. Consider the case of Simon Gonzalez-Munoz, a 44-year-old Mexican. In 2003, a court in Brownfield, Texas, convicted him of “indecency with a child, sexual contact/aggravated sexual assault.” He landed a six-year prison sentence, CBP reported, after which immigration authorities sent him back to Mexico.

But Gonzalez-Munoz wouldn’t stay in Mexico, and so border agents caught him again in May, as they did numerous other previously deported child molesters, reports from CBP show.

Welcome as that news is, the staggering numbers crossing the border — more than 3,000 daily at this writing — suggest that the Border Patrol cannot possibly catch them all. Given that caring for the massive hordes, which includes changing diapers and heating baby bottles, pulls border agents away from their main duty to patrol the border, the likelihood is that multiple child rapists have crossed and were never caught, or border agents caught and released them. Even worse, they might have transported them to small-town America.

Once ensconced in an American city, sanctuary laws protect illegal-alien criminals from deportation. Cities and counties that refuse to cooperate with ICE routinely release dangerous criminals from jail so they can’t be deported. 

Here is how sanctuary laws and policies work in practice: In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Charlotte Observer reported in late May, a previously deported 37-year-old Honduran illegal, Luis Pineda-Ancheta, barricaded himself into a house after police tried to serve him with domestic violence warrants. But the local sheriff, by refusing to honor detainers from ICE, made his criminality possible.

“Barely a week earlier, he had been booked into jail on similar charges, allegedly against the same victim, and released on bond after the detainer was issued,” the newspaper reported. 

The post-standoff charges against Pineda-Ancheta are shocking: “assault by strangulation, kidnapping, assault on a female, communicating threats and violation of a domestic violence protective order, according to jail records.”

But even more shocking was what happened after his arrest and release before the standoff, the newspaper reported. A judge had issued a protective order on May 7 to keep the Honduran thug away from his female victim. But “he was then arrested on May 15, when he was charged with assault on a female, communicating threats, felony larceny, simple assault and injury to personal property, according to jail records. ICE placed a detainer on him the following day, and he was released from jail one day later, on May 17.”

He attacked the same woman on May 21, thanks to the sheriff’s refusal to honor the ICE detainer. 

The newspaper didn’t report that catch and release helped Pineda-Ancheta get where he was, and at least he didn’t murder the woman. But that wasn’t the case with two Salvadorans in Maryland who showed what happens when sanctuary policy fortifies the danger of catch and release. 

In April, authorities in Prince George’s County charged illegal aliens Josue Fuentes-Ponce, 16, and Joel Escobar, 17, with the murder of 14-year-old Ariana Funes-Diaz in April, a crime that inspired ICE to divulge that the county ignored a detainer.

ICE detailed how the pair entered the country, and stayed with the help and permission of the U.S. government.

Fuentes-Ponce crossed the border illegally in Texas three years ago “as part of a family unit.” Immigration authorities freed that “family,” although an immigration judge ordered Fuentes removed in March 2017. Of course, Fuentes-Ponce never left, which highlights another problem with catching and releasing illegals on the promise they will return for adjudication of their case. 

Border agents caught Escobar near McAllen, Texas, and sent him to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which in turn “released [him] to a family member in the Washington, D.C. area.”

On May 11, 2018, before the murder of Funes-Diaz, reported ICE, cops in Prince George’s arrested Fuentes-Ponce and Es-cobar for charges of “attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, participation in gang activity, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted robbery, and other related charges. ICE officers lodged a detainer with PGCDC, however both were released on an unknown date and time without notification to ICE.”

The Washington Post reported that Escobar pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and received a 308-day sentence that included time served. The newspaper could not detail Fuentes-Ponce’s charges because his case went through the juvenile court.

Regardless, the sanctuary county ignored the ICE detainer and freed them. Here was the result: “Prosecutors contend Funes-Diaz was taken on April 18 to a tunnel under an overpass by a creek,” the Post reported, “where Escobar attacked her with a wooden bat and Fuentes-Ponce with a machete, while another person — who is being sought — captured the killing on a camera phone, according to charging documents.”

Another victim of catch and release is Sarah Root, whom President Trump discussed while accepting the GOP nomination for president. Her killer, police allege, is Honduran illegal Edwin Mejia, who jumped the border as an “unaccompanied minor” in 2013 when he was 16 years old. 

Immigration authorities caught him when he crossed the border, the Post reported, but released him to his brother in Tennessee. The family moved to Nebraska, where Mejia, blood alcohol content three times the legal limit at 0.241, smashed into Root at a stoplight. So fast was he driving his Chevy pickup, the Post reported, that he sent Root’s SUV “800 feet along the road, crushing it so badly that the rear and front of the car had become fused.” The crash snapped her spinal cord and fractured her skull in two places.

A judge unwisely freed Mejia on bond. Of course, he disappeared.

Leftist Lawfare, Globalist Plans

Such judges are, indeed, a corollary peril to Americans. The federal judiciary has become a kritarchy that rules by ideological fiat. With immigration, it aids and abets the illegal-alien anarchy at the border. One example is the leftist judge in Massachusetts who helped an illegal alien escape from her courthouse as ICE waited to take him into custody.

Another, however, is Haywood Gilliam, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the kritarch who ruled in May that the administration cannot use military construction and other funds it claimed are discretionary to build a wall. The crux of the judge’s ruling is that the president attempted expenditures for which Congress did not appropriate money, which would trespass the separation of powers.

“Congress’s ‘absolute’ control over federal expenditures — even when that control may frustrate the desires of the Executive Branch regarding initiatives it views as important — is not a bug in our constitutional system,” he wrote. “It is a feature of that system, and an essential one.”

What the judge wrote is, of course, axiomatic as a constitutional matter. Question is, did he apply that axiom correctly in Trump’s case. If not, Trump must decide what to do vis-à-vis activist judges who, at the behest of leftists waging lawfare, are usurping his legal and constitutional obligations to enforce the country’s immigration laws, particularly given that judges defended that prerogative when the president was Barack Obama.  

When Arizona passed a law to permit police to question the immigration status of those they lawfully stop, the Obama administration sued to block the law. The courts sided with Obama. When Trump tightened the rules governing asylum application to clamp down on fraud, and then ordered the use of discretionary funds to build a border wall, leftist, open-borders subversives sued to stop him. The courts ruled for the radical Left.  

In other words, the Constitution means what the Left says it means, which in turn suggests that it has no meaning at all.  

So Trump faces a decision with respect to court orders that usurp his authority, i.e., to declare the courts themselves unconstitutional. Trump can abide those rulings, which will continue the invasion at the border until several million Latin Americans have colonized the American Southwest and infested the heartland. Or, because the executive is a co-equal branch of the federal government, he can ignore those rulings and assert the authority federal law confers upon the president to control immigration, i.e., who gets into the country. 

American sovereignty is at stake, yet the Left aids the illegal immigrants.

Those organizing, aiding, and abetting the illegal immigration are, as Bill Hahn of The John Birch Society said in a recent video, Deep State globalists who hope mass migration into the United States will overwhelm its states and localities. Globalist elites know that migration “on such a scale ... not only changes society, but it also changes government.” The immigration invasion will “create problems big enough” that government must expand to “solve” them with, of course, “programs that the globalists have set up.”

In other words, the mass migration those elites are forcing the American people to accept is turning the American political order on its head. Behind the facade of humanitarian assistance, the elites are creating a new people who will help them integrate the United States into a New World Order, which the elites will manage and manipulate to their own benefit in this country by appealing to that new people’s collectivist instincts with expanded social welfare “programs” and police-state laws the new people traditionally support. New statutes will expand hate speech, hate crime, and gun-control violations and the corollary penalties. But more fundamentally, with the support of its new people, the elites will push for even more radical political change, such as eliminating the Electoral College and passing more “civil rights” laws to concentrate even more power in the federal bureaucracy, give even more power to the radical Left, and finally, dispossess Americans of the country they inherited.

Such was the plan when Trump stepped into the breach. Such is the plan now, if frustrated somewhat by Trump’s tariff threat and Mexico’s capitulation and agreement to stop the migrant hordes from tramping north. But Mexico isn’t responsible for U.S. border security. Congress and the president are. Three simple if difficult-to-pass measures would not only discourage illegals but also cause them to self-deport. The first should be ending  access to public benefits for noncitizens. Second, stiffen penalties for businesses that employ illegals. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the birthright citizenship interpretation of the 14th Amendment must go. That is, “anchor babies,” the children born to illegals who cross the border, should not receive automatic citizenship. 

All that said, what Trump does now, using his presidential powers to control the borders and stop illegal-alien invasion, might well determine whether the United States as we know it survives.

This article originally appeared in the July 8, 2019 print edition of The New American.