What Biden Hath Wrought

Here are some data, and some perspective, regarding what President Joe Biden (D) has done with his destructive immigration policies and their intrinsic open invitation to illegal immigrants to come ahead on and flood into our nation.

  • 6 million illegal aliens crossing our southern border since Biden took office
  • 6 million, nearly 20% of that total, gotaways—illegal aliens detected crossing our border illegally but who escaped capture and arrest
  • May of this year: more than 240,000 illegal border crossers, including at least 60,327 gotaways
  • June: at least 175,000 illegal border crossers were reported, including 50,000 gotaways
  • July: at least 200,500 illegal border crossers were reported including 27,000 gotaways
  • Those 8.6 million illegal aliens are equivalent to
    • estimated individual populations of 38 American States
    • more than all US cities except New York City
    • all American counties except Los Angeles County
    • the populations of over 120 countries
  • Those gotaways alone are more than the individual populations of 11 American States

That’s just the broad characterization of the illegal aliens. Of particular concern to me are those gotaways. Given that our border agents have succeeded in catching, at border stations, a few hundred who were on terrorist watch lists, and several hundred who have records of violent crimes—rape and murder—and who have records of child abuse and child rape, it’s especially concerning that we have no idea how many terrorists, violent criminals (or any other sort of criminals), and child molesters are among the gotaways. Or, to add another category not mentioned in Just the News‘ article, how many Peoples Republic of China, Russia, Iran, northern Korea spies are among the gotaways.

Biden and the Progressive-Democratic Party that supports him don’t care about our border security; they don’t care about our borders. With all that implies regarding our nation’s security.

My Mistake, You Pay for It

That’s New York’s Progressive-Democratic Party governor Kathy Hochul’s solution to the illegal alien influx her State faces.

I’m fully aware that New Yorkers are concerned that over the past year, more than 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in our state, requiring a historic humanitarian response. Moments ago, I issued a letter to the Biden administration formally requesting that it take executive action to address New York’s migrant crisis.

The prior mayor of New York City, the core of the State’s illegal alien “crisis,” the Progressive-Democrat Bill de Blasio, declared the city to be a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. Current Progressive-Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, has openly, loudly, continued the city’s status, inviting the influx of illegal aliens to continue and expand. It’s true enough that Adams is lately whining that he and his city can’t take it anymore, but he’s holding fast to the sanctuary city status.

The larger problem is that New York City and New York State brought this situation on themselves with their carefully, deliberately, done open invitation to all those illegal aliens, whom the Leftist politicians ruling the city and State euphemistically—dishonestly, I say—call “migrants.”

And now, with awesome gall, they demand that the rest of us ordinary Americans pay the costs of their foolish mistake. No. The rulers of New York City and of New York State created the mess they’re in; no one should pay the costs of that mess but the residents of the city and the citizens of the State who elected those rulers. There must be no consideration of any other funding source unless and until those rulers openly repudiate that sanctuary status and just as openly act on the repudiation.

American Worker Shortage

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors have taken note of our nation’s workforce problem and its relation to our immigration problem.

The birth rate has been sliding for years, and it’s about to translate into a shrinking labor force. By 2040, according to a study out this week, America could have more than six million fewer working-age people than in 2022. The only way to counter the domestic trend is by attracting workers from abroad.

One thing that would help with this worker shortage would be to raise the Social Security full retirement age to 70, or even 75. When Social Security was first developed at a national level, some 85 years ago, full retirement was 65, the worker:retiree ratio was 7:1, and life expectancy in retirement was on the order of 7 years. Today, the worker:retiree ratio is less that 3:1 and falling, and life expectancy in retirement is on the order of 15-20 years. Raising the retirement age would increase the number of workers in the labor force.

That by itself, though, would be only a Band-Aid fix outside the strong benefit it would provide to Social Security survival.

What’s far more broadly needed is to build the “big, beautiful wall” all along our southern border, pierced every mile with a border crossing station through which legitimate immigrants and guest workers could enter (and the latter leave), with that combined with a vastly streamlined legal immigration system that removed visa quotas, sped up vetting of immigrant wannabes, and applied requirements that the immigrant wannabes have economic value to add to our nation.

Even that, though, would be insufficient as a stand-alone fix. Our tax regime and our welfare program badly want reform. With lower tax rates on individuals and businesses, there’s more incentive to work and to hire. That incentive can be further expanded by eliminating the areas of overlap among our welfare programs (which will include eliminating some programs and combining parts of others into single programs) and adding work requirements to remaining programs.

Not Successful?

The Wall Street Journal thinks so regarding Texas border security. Here’s their headline and subheadline from last Friday:

Texas Spent Billions on Border Security. It’s Not Working.
Operation Lone Star, with $4.5 billion spent so far, has had little effect on migration while facing charges of civil-rights abuses

And this, in Findell’s third paragraph:

The program is an explicit challenge to the national government, which by law controls international borders and immigration enforcement.

The rest of her piece follows closely on her headline while largely ignoring that key datum in her third paragraph.

On the other hand, there are some actual facts regarding Texas’ Operation Lone Star:

Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to over 394,200 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 31,300 criminal arrests, with more than 29,100 felony charges reported. In the fight against fentanyl, Texas law enforcement has seized over 422 million lethal doses of fentanyl during this border mission.

That sounds pretty successful to this poor, dumb Texan. That’s also despite the national government’s—President Joe Biden’s (D) administration’s—conscious decision to not control our southern border, to instead allow record millions of illegal aliens to flood across that border.

The idea that Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s (R) administration faces civil-rights charges is literally, narrowly true. The cases brought, though, are risible. There’s nothing at all abusive about transporting illegal aliens—who volunteer for the trip—to loudly avowedly sanctuary cities where, by those cities’ proclamations, all illegal aliens are welcome. (Progressive-Democratic Party mayors, like New York City’s Eric Adams, now are whining about having the influx of illegals into their cities, but those plaints are just that—empty whining. Were Adams, et al., actually serious about no longer wanting the illegals, he and his cohorts would cancel the sanctuary status of their cities.)

Obfuscation through Mislabeling

In New York, it’s being done cynically and deliberately in order to funnel American taxpayer dollars to illegal aliens.

The New York Senate has approved a controversial plan to divert federal money to provide low-cost health care coverage for “undocumented individuals.”

They aren’t undocumented individuals; they’re illegal aliens.

A legislative memo describing the bill cited by the New York Post reads

The lack of coverage for significant numbers of New Yorkers….

They aren’t New Yorkers; they’re illegal aliens.

Even Just the News (first link above) the past year….

No. They might—might—have been migrants when they left their home nation, but when they crossed our border illegally, they became illegal aliens, and they remain illegal aliens on their arrival in New York.

And again Just the News‘ mis-appellation, this time in summarizing the bill supporters’ claims:

…more than 400,000 immigrants don’t qualify for coverage options or public coverage through the New York State of Health Marketplace because of their immigration status.

They don’t qualify because their “immigration status” clearly demonstrates that they aren’t immigrants; they’re illegal aliens.

New York’s State Senate Republicans argue, correctly, that (paraphrased by Just the News)

the state should focus on caring for people living in the US legally.

Indeed. American taxpayer money should be committed, first and foremost, to supporting American citizens, whether native born or immigrant, and to supporting legal aliens, resident aliens present in our nation legally.

That’s made a whole lot harder to achieve when the illegal aliens are mischaracterized.