The invasions across the southern border of the United States are increasing in intensity, as evidenced by last week’s crossing of 242 Guatemalans into Arizona. They arrived in several buses, and were dropped off in far northern Mexico, where they simply walked the rest of the way into the United States.
Jeffrey Self, acting Border Patrol Chief in Tucson, explained what happened after the Guatemalans were dropped off on Highway Two: “They walked about 100 yards, climbed under and over the vehicle barrier that is the only infrastructure in that area and agents were called in to make the arrest.”
Border Patrol agents rushed to the scene after the group illegally entered the United States and were detected by a mobile surveillance system.
In another recent incident, Border Patrol agents in Yuma, Arizona, detained almost 400 persons who had entered the country illegally. Similar incidents have taken place in New Mexico.
Earlier this month, Border Patrol video showed a bus approaching an area of Arizona’s border with Mexico in the early morning hours. As is typical with these invasions, the migrants arrive by bus in an unsecured area with no physical barrier to stop them from simply walking a short distance into the U.S.
Ajo Station Chief Fernando Grijalva told NBC News, “He [the camera operator] saw a bus stop on the Mexican side of the border. The bus driver got out, opened the doors and then proceeded to have approximately 80 people exit the bus and cross into the United States illegally.”
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said this was a new trend. Large numbers of migrants are arriving near the U.S. border by buses and are dropped off in remote areas where no physical barrier exists to stop them. “So far in this fiscal year, and this has been a brand-new phenomenon this fiscal year, we have started to see extremely large groups arrive together several times, usually once or twice a week since about mid-October.”
While it is not known how the Guatemalans had managed to make their way across Mexico, it is obvious that these recent incursions into the United States are planned and coordinated. People do not just randomly get on buses and then get dropped off in remote areas. So far in Fiscal Year 2019, which began October 1, 2018, there has been a 231 percent increase in family apprehensions over Fiscal Year 2018.
“This is a crisis,” Grijalva said of the increasing number of migrant families and unaccompanied minors now crossing into the U.S. in record numbers.
Grijalva’s view conforms to that expressed by President Trump and contradicts statements made by Democratic Party leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who accuses Trump of “manufacturing” a crisis for political points.
When asked if there is a “crisis on the border,” Tucson Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Jeffrey Self expressed the same view as Grijalva, telling NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez, “Yes, there is.”
Only a small barbed-wire fence and a vehicle barrier exists in this portion of the Tucson Sector, located in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. It is easily penetrated. Self said, “I can only tell you from focusing on field operations that border security is imperative to this nation.”
Despite the clear need for additional physical barriers on the border with Mexico, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refuses to give any funding for it, declaring a wall “immoral,” without explaining why that is so. In this, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are essentially failing to live up to their oath of office to support the Constitution of the United States.
According to Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, protecting each state in the federal Union from “invasion” is an obligation of the federal government. While some lamely attempt to dismiss this obligation as referring only to invading armies, it is clear that invasion means invasion. While masses of armed soldiers would certainly fit the definition of an “invasion,” an additional definition of invasion is encroachment. In The New International Webster Pocket Thesaurus, synonyms for “invader” include “trespasser” and “alien.”
This obligation logically refers to more than just repelling military invasions by foreign powers, as that is mentioned in Article I, Section 8 and in the Preamble to the Constitution.
It should be said that no physical barrier, even when combined with electronic detection devices and additional border agents, will keep out all foreign invaders, any more than laws against murder, robbery, and rape stop all those crimes. But we don’t throw up our hands and say that those horrible crimes will take place anyway, so we will just stop taking action against them.
As laws against violent crimes reduce their incidence, additional physical barriers in remote border places, combined with other methods, will drastically reduce these invasions.
Politicians such as Pelosi and Schumer who fail to protect this country from this invasion are derelict in their duty.
Photo: AP Images
