Commentary

On Day One of his administration, President Biden halted construction of the border wall begun by former President Trump and announced that he was sending an immigration bill to Congress as part of his commitment to modernize our immigration system.

“The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 established a new system to responsibly manage and secure our border, keep our families and communities safe, and better manage migration across the hemisphere.”

Space does not permit me to provide detail of the Act’s content, but it can be found on-line if you are interested.

Briefly, what you need to know is that “It authorized the DHS Secretary (that’s Alejandro Mayorkas) to develop and implement a strategy to manage and secure the southern border between ports of entry (like Eagle Pass, Texas) that focuses on flexible solutions and technologies that expand the ability to detect illicit activity.” Mayorkas has repeatedly insisted the border was secure.  

Two days later, the left-leaning VOA News (Voice of America) proudly reported that “With Republicans no longer in Senate leadership and chairing key committees, Biden is in a stronger position to pursue legislative action on his campaign promises.”

Then, on February 2, 2021, VOA News announced that “Biden signed executive orders to start to dismantle former President Donald Trump’s restrictive immigration policies. “I’m not making new law.  I’m eliminating bad policy,” Biden said while signing the orders.

Regarding that legislative action – the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 – it did not receive a vote and died in Congress after being introduced on February 18, 2021.

With it the promise to responsibly manage and secure our border, and keep our families and communities safe.

It didn’t matter to Biden, who sponsors an open borders policy.  Since he took office, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reports that over seven million illegals were encountered at the border, adding to the estimated 10 million undocumented illegals already here. In addition, an estimated 1.7 million “known gotaways” evaded capture and entered the U.S.

We know that Democrats seek uncontrolled immigration as a way to recruit future voters for policies the current electorate won’t support.  To this end, Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib is promoting a pathway to citizenship.

We are now learning more about the supposed bipartisan bill cobbled together by Democrats and weak-kneed Republicans that is dead on arrival in Congress.  It’s supposed to tackle our border crisis, but it is chucked full of “if” and “shall” loopholes that would allow thousands of migrants to continue to enter. No serious Republican should support it, but as usual, Senators Collins, Murkowski, Romney, and Lankford voted for it. Kudos to Speaker Mike Johnson for standing strong on this omnibus bill that includes money for Ukraine and Israel.

Connecticut Democrat Rep. Chris Murphy, appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe delivered “a truly ludicrous defense of the bloated, ineffective border bill,” reported Bob Hoge in Red State.  “The president can’t do this by himself. The president doesn’t have the legal authority without additional legislation to control the border,” said Murphy.

That’s simply not true.  With a stroke of his pen on executive orders, Biden halted construction of the wall and reversed all of Trump’s border policies.  He could just as easily reestablish the Trump policies.

But no, his campaign advisors have instructed him to place the blame for not passing the bill on Trump.  On Tuesday, he again accused Trump of not being interested in solving the border problem. “He wants a political issue to run against me on,” Biden said.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board ridiculously advises Republicans to approve bill rather than risk the Democrat blame game leading up to Election Day, but this is the time for the GOP to stand strong.  Speaker Johnson has committed to do so, but I’m not so sure of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Amendments cannot alter the direction of the bill.

I understand that there are a number of ardent Trump supporter Republicans who see him as the guy who has been there and knows how to get the border under control, but if the deal was legitimate, they would support it.

In his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes that “Mr. Trump was supposed to be the antidote to elites who are ‘incapable of doing anything.’  He was the guy who ‘gets things done,’ he kept telling us.” 

Jenkins mistakenly said that Trump is “the leader who was supposed to ‘get things done’ fails on immigration,” but Trump isn’t the president today.

At least the Journal’s Gerard Baker gets it right.  In his column, “The Elites Opened the Door to Migrants – and Chaos, Baker, after reviewing some of the criminal activity we have witnessed by migrants, like the eight hoodlums who attacked and beat two New York policemen, wrote:

“Perhaps I exaggerate. But the scale of the migration crisis … seems to me the issue that will increasingly define the politics of our age.

“Unless we turn back now, the consequences of all this will overwhelm us.

“If we don’t act in the face of this building demographic wave to seize back control of our borders, the day is coming when we will no longer even be able to affirm the primacy of our values.”

May God continue to bless the United States that we have known and cherished; not the country the Biden-Harris administration would have us freely cede.