Editor’s note: When it comes to immigration — illegal or otherwise — the American people have a right to be concerned. Liberty Nation author Kelli Ballard examines contentious issues related to today’s hottest topic.
Those fighting against illegal immigration recently won a small battle when the Democrats’ attempt to sneak funding for a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegals into their $3.5 trillion spending bill was thwarted. While the southern border is being overrun with migrants and refugees, the left sought to circumvent the rules to get what they wanted, and it didn’t work – this time.
On Sept. 19, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled the provision that would give a means to quicker citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants could not be included in the bill. She said that it is “by any standard a broad, new immigration policy,” and it doesn’t meet the guidelines to be included in the budget resolution. “The policy changes of this proposal far outweigh the budgetary impact scored to it and it is not appropriate for inclusion in reconciliation,” she added.
Democrats tried to include their “immigration” plan to provide amnesty to nearly eight million illegal aliens, including the Dreamers, temporary protected status holders, agricultural laborers, and essential workers. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said his party was “deeply disappointed in this decision but the fight to provide lawful status for immigrants in budget reconciliation continues.” He added that the Dems have prepared alternate proposals, hoping to meet with MacDonough and get something approved.
This was one win, if temporarily, for the Republicans and those in favor of more immigration control. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the provision was “inappropriate” and “radical” and that he was “glad it failed.” He continued:
“Senate rules never contemplated a majority circumventing the filibuster by pretending that sweeping and transformational new policies were mere budgetary changes.
“Democrats will not be able to stuff their most radical amnesty proposals into the reckless taxing and spending spree they are assembling behind closed doors. This just illustrates how radical Democrats’ aspirations are and how unmoored their far-left wish list has become from the procedures they want to use to ram it through.”
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been adamantly opposed to giving so many people a clear pathway to becoming citizens. In July, he told Fox News that the Democrats’ package proposal is a “power grab” and a faulty idea. He explained:
“If you give one person legal status there will be a run on our border like you have never seen before … the dumbest idea in the history of the Senate, the history of the White House. It will lead to the breakdown of law and order beyond what you see today.”
Speaking of the Border …
Graham’s prediction of border trouble wasn’t off the mark. In July and August, there were more than 400,000 encounters between illegal immigrants and border officials. That doesn’t include all those who were able to sneak in undetected.
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
In Texas, the Del Rio International Bridge became a small city of illegals – mostly from Haiti, according to reports – who were supposedly seeking asylum in the U.S. But, Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and author of America’s Covert Border War, says that isn’t necessarily the case. He claims all the Haitians he has interviewed have not recently been in Haiti, but instead have been living in Chile or Brazil for at least the past three years. “I’ve never met one yet who is actually coming directly from Haiti,” he said.
As has been the non-transparent way of the Biden administration, many of the stories and much of the footage of the swarm of illegals coming across the nation’s border and the horrible conditions of the migrant facilities have been shoved under a rug. Just recently, the Federal Aviation Administration sought to ground a camera drone from Fox News while it filmed the disaster under the Del Rio bridge. Reporter Bill Melugin instead rode on a helicopter with Texas troopers to get the videos and then hired a boat to get pictures of the migrants crossing by the hundreds. The FAA finally gave up its efforts to suppress the news and allowed the drone back in the air.
Once these images actually got out, the Biden administration knew it had to show the American people that something was being done. Enter Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Liberty Nation reported on the secretary’s bold announcement that the border was under control and closed to illegal immigration. Suddenly, the department announced they were flying Haitians back to their country with up to three flights a day. However, according to Bensman as well as other reporters in Del Rio, those who are eligible for asylum are instead being secretly dispersed to other parts of the U.S. in unmarked busses and then planes.
Meanwhile, thousands of migrant children have disappeared, and reports of horrific violence and child abuse have surfaced. As Liberty Nation Editor-in-Chief Leesa K. Donner pointed out in her report on the 41 pages of records – detailing 33 sexual abuse allegations – released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):
“The sad news is that the newly released records only covered the period between January 21 to February 26 of this year. A press release made public today, September 22, by Judicial Watch exposed ‘ten allegations of sex abuse made against the staff and “non-staff” members of federal government contractors’. Another 21 incidents of child-on-child assaults were disclosed while the children were housed in government contracted care facilities.”
According to the HHS website, more than 75,000 children have been released across the nation during this fiscal year. However, Axios reported the government has lost contact with nearly one-third of them, and the problem only continues to grow.
On Sept. 20, a letter signed by 26 Republican governors went out asking President Biden to schedule a meeting at the White House within the next 15 days for an “open and constructive dialogue regarding border enforcement on behalf of U.S. citizens in our states and all those hoping to become U.S. citizens.” The state leaders say the surge of migrants has created an “international humanitarian crisis” and that border arrests are up nearly 500%. They also warn that nearly 10,000 of those illegal immigrants so far arrested have prior criminal convictions and that drug and human trafficking has greatly increased.
Offering a pathway to citizenship, as the Democrats are relentlessly trying to do, will only encourage more of what we’re seeing right now.
~ Read more from Kelli Ballard.
