Since January 1, 2021, 85,000 Haitians have passed through the treacherous jungles of the Darien Gap on the Colombian border with Panama. Survivors then trek 1,941 miles in the unfriendly territory through Guatemala and Mexico in hopes of crossing the Rio Grande and onto American soil. Thirty-thousand have succeeded and have either been shipped home, legally dispersed throughout the lower 48, or have vanished into thin air.
Having carved federal law enforcement agencies to skeleton crews on the U.S./Mexico border, the Biden administration now seems to be at war with its own Border Patrol. Just days ago, the president threatened to make the “persons responsible pay” for the poor optics of one photograph that captured an agent trying to deter a desperate refugee.
Making matters down south even worse, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has declared: “It is the policy of this administration [that] we do not agree with a building of the wall.” Obviously, the administration has far more pressing matters – expanding genders, increasing the debt, and helping the vice president with an image makeover, for example.
Besides those poor suckers living on the border, who cares about the illegal crossings? For pity’s sake, those people don’t have computers, internet, or a Kinkos, as the VP has advised.
This Could Have Been Avoided
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
While the border czar was looking for “root causes” in Guatemala and Mexico City, Panama sounded the alarm. It must have been a silent alarm. Panamanian Foreign Minister Erika Mouynes spoke with Axios and let fly her frustrations: “We’ve engaged with every single authority that we can think of, that we can come across, to say, ‘Please, let’s pay attention to this.’”
Panamanian officials have met with Mayorkas and some members of Congress. Mouynes emphatically believes Panama is getting the brunt of Haitian refugees, stating, “we all have a role to play in this issue, and the regional approach is the correct approach. It is impossible for Panama to solve it on its own.”
According to Mouynes, hopeful immigrants have arrived “malnourished.” She added that “the children are in terrible condition, so even getting them up to a healthy state takes time.”
Perhaps the border czar can trace the root causes of the mass illegal migration of Haitians to Haiti. But then again, this administration has no need or desire to help the natural disaster ground zero of the Caribbean. As then-Senator Biden surely misstated in 1994, “If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest.” So much for reaching out to the huddled masses.
But We Can’t Avoid This Now
As many as 800 Haitians are crossing the border illegally per day. That might seem like a manageable number until you think about putting them into the system, where migrants tend to stay in perpetuity. Simultaneously, Border Patrol agents are being threatened with termination over a photo and if they refuse to take a COVID-19 vaccination. But, of course, few, if any, of the illegal immigrants and refugees pouring across the porous border are vaccinated. Out of the 30,000 Haitian migrants who have made it to the U.S. since September 1, about 2,000 have been sent back to Haiti. Another 12,000 have simply been released in the United States.
What kind of apocalypse would occur if Biden fired a handful of his national security team on the southern border – and if the rest walk out in solidarity? Already for every 200 apprehensions is one over-worked and under-valued agent.
Instead of listening to the alarming information from Panama and helping Haiti get back to livable and functioning conditions, this administration galivants from city to city in Central America making speeches. What it hasn’t done is fix the border catastrophe of its own making. The border czar needs to head to Del Rio, TX – and other easy pathways into this nation – and get to work.
~ Read more from Sarah Cowgill.
