DHS: Illegal Border Crossings Surge In Anticipation of Biden Presidency

DHS: Illegal Border Crossings Surge In Anticipation of Biden Presidency

Former vice president Joe Biden pledged to end border wall construction and to loosen immigration rules.  The message was heard loudly and clearly, apparently, as DHS is reporting a surge in illegal border crossings.

Earlier this month, Politico reported:

. . . Joe Biden has pledged to put a swift halt to border wall construction and loosen immigration restrictions imposed by Trump.

To pay for the barrier, Trump has siphoned billions from military construction projects and other programs over the past two years, much to the dismay of lawmakers in both parties. But legislative efforts to shield the Pentagon budget so far have fallen short, while legal challenges to halt construction of the wall are winding their way through the courts.

“There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1,” Biden told National Public Radio earlier this year. “I’m going to make sure that we have border protection, but it’s going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it.”

That could also mean withdrawing National Guard troops Trump sent to the border to support the Department of Homeland Security, a deployment extended through this year.

Beyond the wall, the president-elect’s broader immigration plans represent a complete reversal of the Trump administration’s policies over the past several years — and he can accomplish much of it fairly easily.

Biden wants to expand opportunities for legal immigration, including family and work-based visas as well as access to humanitarian visa programs. Biden’s immediate moves would largely entail rescinding various actions initiated under Trump that barred immigrants from certain countries and curtailed legal immigration, including new restrictions on asylum and rules making it harder for poor immigrants to obtain legal status.

The hope of a return to Obama-Biden open borders policies has prompted a 21% “Biden surge” in illegal border crossings in the last month.

The Washington Times reports:

Border Patrol agents are already seeing a Biden surge in illegal immigration at the southwest border, officials said Thursday, with the numbers surging 21% over the last month alone.

Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan said worsening economic conditions south of the border are largely responsible for the uptick, but he also blamed “perceived and or anticipated shifts in policies” here in the U.S.

. . . . Border Patrol agents and CBP officers snared about 69,000 unauthorized border crossers in October, up from about 58,000 in September.

. . . . Among the policies targeted by Mr. Biden are the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as “remain in Mexico,” which allowed CBP to return many illegal immigrants back to Mexico to wait for their immigration hearings. Mr. Morgan said that denied them a foothold, and cut the incentive for them to come in the first place.

He said before that policy, CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both part of Homeland Security, released some 500,000 migrants directly into communities in 2019. After MPP was implemented, that fell to 15,000 in 2020.

Mr. Morgan said halting border wall construction, as Mr. Biden has vowed, will also hamper CBP’s ability to stop future waves of illegal migration.

Democrats are reportedly confounded by President Trump’s gains among Hispanic voters; perhaps they should look at this kind of thing as one of the reasons for their massive downticket drubbing.

The Washington Examiner reports:

President Trump’s policies limiting immigration, decried by liberals and the Biden-Harris ticket, won broad bipartisan and Hispanic support in the election and even turned several border towns red for the first time in years.

According to two reviews, majorities of Hispanics and Democrats supported the administration’s curbs on immigration to stop the coronavirus, protect jobs, and maintain the current population mix.

And in several heavily immigrant border counties, voters rejected the demonization of Trump’s policies and agents of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a voter exit survey for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, 78% said immigration was an “important” issue for them and was key to who they voted for. Support for Trump’s border closings to block further COVID-19 exposure won 80% support.

Significantly, said the Zogby Analytics survey shared with Secrets, 60% of Hispanics and 54% of Democrats backed Trump’s immigration cuts to protect U.S. jobs. And similar numbers agreed that the cuts were good to “maintain our nation’s population.”

Democrats have long embraced the “demographics is destiny” absurdity, but it’s clear that their policies are not supported by large swaths of the very voting blocs they expected to fall in line with them.

Will they start listening to the people they claim to represent or simply plow ahead focused on their wildly unpopular ‘build back better,’ Green New Deal, open borders schemes? My guess is the latter; Democrats have long demonstrated that they simply don’t care what the American people want and are focused only on shoving their radical agenda onto an unwilling nation.

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