Border crossings have reached epidemic proportions since Joe Biden became president. New York has become a flashpoint in the crisis despite being thousands of miles away from the Mexican border.
“I’m gonna tell you something, New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I didn’t see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said at a town hall on the Upper West Side Wednesday night. “This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City.”
A Siena College poll finds that 41% of New Yorkers favor completing Donald Trump’s border wall. Both New York City and New York state are considered sanctuaries for illegals.
“Over 40% of all New Yorkers believe that immigrants take more than they offer society. About a third believe current migrants are dangerous, perhaps even criminal, only want hand-outs, and are a source of illegal drugs. But in each of these cases more New Yorkers disagree with, rather than hold, these judgments,” said Siena College polling director Don Levy.
Last month, the Border Patrol arrested 91,000 people who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexican border. That exceeded the prior record of 84,486 set in May 2019.
Border Crossings Up 16% Since 2021
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that 17 million migrants currently live in the United States illegally. It suggests that number has increased by 16% since President Biden took office in early 2021.
“This estimate is also a 2.3 million increase from our end-of-2020 estimate, meaning the illegal alien population increased 16 percent nationwide during just the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency,” the report says.
The Biden administration’s “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways” policy put in place in May following the expiration of Title 42 and the Remain in Mexico policy have not deterred migrants.
“Border Patrol apprehensions increased by more than 30 percent, and apprehensions of families tripled. Such increases in arrivals suggests that the asylum ban, like many other restrictive policies in the past … do not stop people from migrating and seeking safety for their families,” a new United Nations report says. “The Women’s Refugee Commission’s (WRC’s) monitoring found that the ban has created confusion for those trying to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border, and that most wait in dangerous and insecure conditions in Mexico. Those who cannot wait may cross between ports of entry along dangerous routes and risk serious injury or death.”
Cartels Exploit Border Policy
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., stated at a July committee hearing that the cartels more or less have operational control of the border.
“Business is so good that the cartels have devised a complex system for the massive number of people trying to illegally cross the Southwest border. For instance, cartels use colored wristbands to inventory those who are attempting to cross. Secretary Mayorkas told the Senate in that same hearing he wasn’t familiar with these wristbands, either,” Green said. “The violence and atrocities are not just being felt along the border – our American communities throughout the country are suffering as well. A lot of the violence can often be traced back to the cartels, because they often subcontract their mayhem to gangs that effectively function as the cartels’ national distribution network.”
Cartels Exploit Open Border for Weapons Smuggling
Intelligence reports suggest that the Mexican cartels have exploited the open border to smuggle military-grade weapons in addition to human trafficking.
These include up to a million firearms, belt-fed miniguns and grenade launchers. The free flow of American guns across the Mexican border has helped to destabilize Mexico.
“We have allowed the cartels to amass an army,” Chris Demlein, who served as a senior special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — the ATF — until 2021, told CBS News.
An initiative known as Project Thor found that up to $500 million annually was being spent by the cartels to smuggle American weapons into Mexico. Thus far U.S. government efforts to stem the flow of weapons has proven impotent.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
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