As the 2024 presidential election looms, citizens’ greatest concerns take center stage, especially the top three: economy, immigration, and Ukraine-Russia. President Joe Biden is scrambling to improve his devastating poll numbers, but one area he consistently ignores is the mass influx of illegals at the border. His approval – or rather disapproval – rating is testament to that.
The Numbers
While the president makes headlines for walking with striking auto workers, nearly 233,000 illegal immigrants crossed the southern border just last month, and that doesn’t include the gotaways: foreign nationals who were caught on camera or seen by border agents but not apprehended. When you add in those figures, the count is at least 261,327 according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). “This is the greatest number reported in August in U.S. history, according to CBP data on record,” wrote The Center Square. In fact, since 2021, nearly 1.6 million gotaways have been counted.
Here are some more shocking numerics from The Center Square:
“The majority of illegal border crossers are single adults, totaling nearly 1.2 million fiscal year to date. The majority are coming [from] non-Central American countries from all over the world, totaling over 577,000. The next greatest numbers are more than 444,000 Mexicans, over 76,000 Guatemalans, more than 65,000 Hondurans and over 26,000 El Salvadorans.
“The next largest group of illegal border crossers are family units, totaling over 518,000 fiscal year to date. Among them, the greatest number are coming from non-Central American countries, over 324,000; followed by over 71,000 Mexicans, nearly 60,000 Guatemalans, and over 61,000 Hondurans.”
In an interview with ABC News, former Acting Commissioner of Border Protection Mark Morgan said illegal immigration is not a victimless crime because the cartels purposely distract agents with a swarm of migrants. “This is a tactic that the cartels have been using for a very long time and it’s not real complicated,” he explained. The cartel floods an area with illegal aliens and when border patrol encounters them, “that leaves the areas to the right and to the left of them wide open. That’s where they push through all the threats that they don’t want to have caught,” which includes drugs, criminals, and those who are dangers to national security.
This year so far, 159 criminals on the terrorist watch list have been arrested. Morgan said that under the Biden administration, the total number is 268. “To put that into perspective, the full year [of] FY ’20, that number was three.” He added that Americans should be more concerned with those who do not get caught.
Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens told ABC News that the agents can’t do their job, keeping drugs and dangerous people out of the country, because so many illegals crossing overwhelm the authorities.
(Photo by Allison Dinner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A New Boston Tea Party?
It’s not just the southern border territories experiencing hardship with the surge. Blue states are complaining as well. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson is considering military-style tents to house the undocumented, and the city is spending about $30 million a month to care for immigrants already there. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has basically reversed his views on sanctuary cities now that he has spent $1.5 million to care for migrants. He warned that the 110,000 who have already entered will “destroy New York City … The city we knew, we’re about to lose.”
Some liberals make the matter worse by offering traditional citizen rights and privileges to non-citizens, such as driver’s licenses, and now the city of Santa Ana, CA, will possibly allow illegals the right to vote in municipal elections. “I do believe that noncitizen voting in local elections is about increasing civic engagement,” said Councilmember Johnathan Hernandez in an interview with KTLA. “Taxation without representation is a value that America holds dear. So we want to advance those rights. I believe that noncitizen voting is a step in the right direction.”
Does giving illegal immigrants the right to vote equal a Boston Tea Party? Some seem to think so, including one man who attended a city council meeting. “’Not long ago, we had noncitizens who threw a big tea party because they were taxed without representation,’ said Carlos Perea, executive director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice at the meeting as he declared he is an undocumented immigrant. ‘One out of every four citizens of Santa Ana pays taxes but does not have the representation we deserve,’” The Center Square reported.
Biden Blind to Illegal Immigration Problem
Because of the near open-door immigration policies of the left, local officials have felt the need to take drastic measures, such as shipping migrants to progressive sanctuary cities. On Sept. 26, the New York Post reported that Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) plans to introduce a resolution to declare a formal “invasion” at the US-Mexico border because the number of illegal crossings is reaching a new high under the Biden administration. He told The Post:
“Since our own commander-in-chief won’t put a stop to this historic crisis — an invasion as defined by the US Constitution — Congress must recognize each state’s right to secure their borders themselves.”
According to the outlet, “[t]he resolution ‘to express the sense of the Senate regarding the constitutional right of state Governors to repel the dangerous ongoing invasion across the United States southern border’ draws on the ‘unless actually invaded’ portion of Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution, which allows state officials more flexibility in defending against invasion.” This could trigger Section 4 of the Constitution that says the United States “shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion.”
The Republicans have held several inquiries into Biden’s inaction on the border crisis and have added those complaints to an impeachment effort. Still, the president ignores the national security threat, driving his approval ratings even lower.
According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, Biden has only a 23% approval rating on his handling of immigration at the US-Mexico border. In a CBS News poll, participants were asked if they approved or disapproved of the president’s actions on some of the top issues that concern Americans. A whopping 66% said they disapproved of how the commander-in-chief is dealing with the border crisis, second only to inflation, where 71% disapprove.
With these figures as the backdrop to President Biden’s re-election campaign, one wonders just how much confidence the DNC has in its man in the White House.
