Liz Peek: Biden's border crisis – here's who this disaster hurts most and who might benefit
Congratulations to President Joe Biden, who is finally bringing the country together
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Congratulations to President Joe Biden, who is finally bringing the country together.
According to a recent Rasmussen poll, fully 73% of the nation is concerned about the government’s ability to manage the flood of people illegally crossing our southern border while meeting "COVID-19 protocols." They are right to be worried.
Joe Biden has created a disaster at the border – both humanitarian and political. Nearly 5,000 children are now penned up, apart from their families, in what even the liberal media, roused to hysteria by President Trump putting "children in cages," describes as "jail-like detention centers."
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Meanwhile, his border mess is breathing new life into the struggling Republican Party and sowing more dissension among Democrats. And, even as his $1,400 checks arrive in people’s mailboxes, Biden’s approval ratings are only holding their own.
Most important, Biden’s childish eagerness to get rid of every Trump policy, including those that had staunched the flow of caravans from Central America, has torpedoed any chance of uniting the nation around meaningful immigration reform, even as his colleagues in the House are feverishly passing bills promising citizenship to millions. That does not happen when our border collapses.
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Such is the mayhem at the border that the White House is reportedly considering releasing asylum seekers into the country without giving them a Notice to Appear – effectively a court date for their hearing. That means people will enter the U.S, with no oversight whatsoever, leaving it up to them to secure legal processing at some future date.
Such a move would be unprecedented; critics will rightly claim it amounts to "open borders."
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This latest brainstorm was in response to an accelerating crisis that saw 1,000 people attempt to cross into the US over just a couple of hours a few days ago, overwhelming facilities that are already maxed out and local agents struggling to deal with another 1,000 people already waiting to be processed. Border Patrol cannot handle the people, or the paperwork.
Talk about an unforced error! Joe Biden is reaping exactly what he has sown at the southern border: absolute chaos and well-deserved political humiliation.
Biden has no one to blame but himself. That hasn’t kept his team, of course, from saying it’s all Trump’s fault; White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, among others, has claimed that Trump left behind a "dismantled and unworkable system."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Biden cannot credibly accuse his predecessor of creating what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calls a "humanitarian crisis". He knew what loosening Trump’s immigration policies might mean; he even argued he had to take it slow, so as not to end up with "two million people at the border."
The political damage done to the Biden presidency by the border crisis cannot be overstated.
He did it anyway, notwithstanding real health and security risks.
One Homeland Security source estimated that 15% to 25% of the people crossing the border illegally were COVID-positive and there are reports that some asylum seekers being released into our communities have tested positive for the virus. This is an outrage.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The political damage done to the Biden presidency by the border crisis cannot be overstated. For starters, it has exposed the president as utterly careless of the welfare of working-class Americans. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented people will likely enter the country over the next several months. They will melt into our cities and towns, picking up such work as they can, pressuring wages for low-income workers.
This, as the pandemic has led to staggering job losses amongst Black and Hispanic Americans who, in particular, will feel the brunt of this new competition.
Biden’s border mess has also undermined the new administration’s promises to be the "most transparent in history." The White House is denying reporters access to the detention centers holding thousands of young people and imposed a "gag order" on local Border Patrol agents.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Even the Biden-hugging liberal media is not pleased. As NBC noted, in a rare nod to the prior administration, "At the height of the Trump administration’s child separation policy in June 2018, it allowed media to tour facilities where separated children were held."
One agent told NBC that while the Trump administration had permitted some border ride-alongs for reporters during the pandemic, there has been "not a single one since Jan. 20," the day of Biden’s inauguration.
The real cost to Biden, however, is that his border blunder has torpedoed any hope of achieving meaningful immigration reform.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}History has shown that Americans dislike seeing our border overwhelmed. During the Obama administration, for instance, Gallup polling showed resistance to immigration hardened when the border was overrun in 2014. As Trump’s measures cut down on illegal entrants, people became more tolerant of new arrivals. Sentiment against immigration is already increasing.
The border disaster has breathed new life into a Republican Party divided over Trump’s ongoing influence and struggling to explain why they uniformly opposed Biden’s popular $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan." People like being given free money; the GOP was right to resist the unnecessary budget-buster, but common sense has been drowned out by self-congratulating Democrat messaging.
Now, though, the GOP is unified around protecting our border, a position that until recently most Democrats championed as well. Republicans know this could be the issue that allows them to take back Congress.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Meanwhile, the chaos has widened existing fissures among Democrats. The progressive wing of the party, which exerts astonishing power over the supposedly "moderate" Biden, wants to simply throw the doors wide open, welcoming any and all who want to come to this country.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, D-N.Y., who famously was reduced to tears by Trump’s "inhumane" treatment of migrants, wants to deal with the crisis by getting rid of Homeland Security, disbanding ICE, and creating a "climate refugee status." We presume the latter could allow nearly anyone to claim asylum, since she has warned that in only 12 years, climate change will bring the world to an end.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}At least that gives us time to elect a new president.