by Chris Russo – President, Texans for Strong Borders
This week, Democrats gathered in Chicago to officially nominate candidates for President and Vice President, adopt a platform, and rally the troops going into the November 5th presidential election, where Vice President Kamala Harris will face former President Donald J. Trump.
One of the most intriguing questions leading into the convention was how Democrats would address the central failure of the Biden-Harris administration, the invasion of our nation’s southern border by millions of illegal aliens and the subsequent release of these aliens into the interior of the United States.
Since January 2021, the Department of Homeland Security has documented over 10.1 million Nationwide Border Encounters. In addition to this staggering number, there have been over 2 million known gotaways and hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens flown into the United States via commercial airline flights. That brings the total to a mind-boggling 12.4 million, not counting the illegal aliens who entered our nation undetected. In a discussion with Elon Musk on 𝕏, former President Trump stated that according to his sources, the total number of illegal and ineligible aliens entering the United States could be as high as 19 million. That number would be higher than the population of all but four states: California, Texas, Florida, and New York.
The rhetoric presented this week by speaker after speaker was similar to what President Biden and Democrats in the United States Senate have been advancing for most of the summer: the Republicans are playing politics by rejecting the “bipartisan Border Security bill” that would have allegedly solved the border crisis, that illegal border crossings are now lower than at the end of the Trump administration, and that President Harris’ experience fighting the cartels as a prosecutor in California would be invaluable at ending human trafficking.
Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not grounded in reality. As we have previously reported, the Lankford-Schumer Bill would allow for millions of inadmissible aliens to be processed into the United States before any enhanced expulsions would be provided for. In addition, the bill contained many concessions expanding legal immigration into the United States in the midst of a contracting labor market. At the time, we argued that President Biden did not need any additional help from Congress to enact these proposed enforcement policies, and indeed after the bill foundered in the United States Senate, President Biden issued an executive order that contained stricter limits than the proposed legislation before triggering expedited removals.
Indeed, it is the Democrats who have been playing politics with the border and immigration. Republicans passed H.R. 2, the most sweeping border enforcement bill passed by Congress in decades, last May, and it has sit on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s desk with no action taken since. The paltry measures in the Lankford-Schumer bill and Biden’s executive actions were only taken after Democrats realized that the Open Borders policies of the previous three years were becoming an electoral liability as 87% of American voters believe the border is either an “emergency” or a “major problem.”
Make no mistake: the Biden-Harris administration owns this border crisis. Here is a quick rundown of the direct actions that have led to the massive influx of millions of illegal and inadmissible aliens entering the United States:
- Upon entering office, President Biden signed into law a total moratorium on deportations (it was later partially struck down in court)
- Biden eliminated the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), popularly known as Remain In Mexico
- Biden canceled Third Safe Country agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, which blew open the doors for new and frivolous asylum claims
- Biden propped up numerous illegal humanitarian parole schemes which allowed millions of illegal aliens to be released into the interior of the country, including the CHNV program which flew in hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens into U.S. airports with minimal vetting. The CHNV program was recently shut down after multiple high-profile crimes committed by aliens admitted under the program
- The Biden-Harris administration has released millions of illegal aliens into the interior of the country on their own recognizance
- Most recently, the Biden-Harris administration started the mass amnesty Parole in Place (PIP) program with a pathway to citizenship for illegal alien spouses and stepchildren of United States citizens
Our message to American voters is this: do not be deceived by the empty rhetoric. Four more years of Kamala Harris in the White House would only embolden Open Borders radicals to pursue mass amnesty and codify the failed policies of the current administration into law. And indeed, they should continue to pressure Republican politicians, including Donald Trump, to follow through on their promises to secure the border and “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.“
In December, Texans for Strong Borders issued an endorsement of Trump for President in the 2024 election. While we are pleased with his promise to secure the border and deport the illegal aliens who are already here, we fully recognize the difficulty of this task and we encourage citizens to continue to engage with their elected officials to make these promises a reality, especially in the face of the inevitable media onslaught that will ensue when these policies begin to be enacted.
When Trump wins a second term in November, we urge him to pressure Congress to pass H.R. 2 and begin the arduous process of undoing the damage from the last four years. And finally, we urge him not to bow to the big business and agricultural lobbies who will demand amnesty or a massive increase in legal immigration to continue to flood the United States with cheap foreign labor. Instead, he must remain faithful to putting American citizens first, like he did with the proposal of the RAISE Act, or even with a Net Migration Moratorium until mass migration into the United States is curtailed.