As we prepare to leave January 2024 behind (already!?), the Biden Administration has finally confirmed that there were a record 371,436 encounters of illegal immigrants nationwide, with 302,034 of those encounters at the border, alone, in just this past December. The Administration also bragged about recruiting and releasing, under parole, approximately 327,000 individuals from countries like Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in 2023. So, almost as many people were encountered illegally in one month than Biden paroled in a year. The Biden Administration has steadfastly assured the American People and Congress that their strategy of creating lawful pathways through parole would reduce demand at the border. Instead, as Biden has expanded his parole programs, the number of encounters at the border have only exponentially increased. These jaw-dropping border numbers make clear that no solution at the border is possible without eliminating Biden’s illegal immigration incentive programs like parole and employment authorization for illegal entrants.
While 2024 rolls on, we have seen the Biden border policy in practice. Each year, the border numbers have increased as more elements of Biden’s agenda have been implemented. The Administration first moved to dismantle Trump-era enforcement policies. In their place, the Biden Administration has expanded parole, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), employment authorization, and H-2B visas, to name a few. The idea behind this strategy, again, was to direct the population entering illegally into a different lane. They were treating the situation, primarily, as a traffic problem (as opposed to a trafficking problem). What do you do when automobile traffic is congested? You expand the lanes, right?
In opposition to the President, the American people do not see the border crisis as a simple traffic problem. Unlike the President and his security detail, the American people have to experience the shock and awe of overwhelmed public resources, rising crime, and increased labor competition. In other words, the opposition is coming from those reaping the whirlwind. President Biden is comforted that his policies will make the transition to America easier for everyone involved. The ever-expanding border numbers are inevitable, and America must simply manage the flow. When Biden says he is fixing the border crisis, this is the lens from which he views it. He is fixing it insofar as his policies would formalize open borders as our immigration policy.
However, the very nature of open borders is that it cannot be routinized and formalized the way President Biden imagines. Because, as it turns out, illegal immigrants are free agents and they can have all sorts of motives for choosing to cross the border illegally even when you offer them a rubber stamp of parole. There is a billion dollar narcotics and human trafficking industry thriving along our border. The villains behind these industries are not going to be deterred by phone apps.
And why should any alien care at all whether there is a lawful pathway to parole? The President has made it clear that you can always make a frivolous asylum claim at the time and place of your choosing. Even if asylum were not available, the Biden Administration has said they oppose removing aliens in the United States illegally. They have written as much in their enforcement priority guidelines.
The truth is that under the Biden Administration the distinction between illegal and legal immigrants has already been destroyed. There is no threat of removal because illegal immigrants are not an enforcement priority. Due to aggressive expansion of parole and employment authorization, most illegal immigrants arriving in the United States will be allowed to work just like legal immigrants. In fact, illegal immigrants receiving employment authorization often have more labor rights than legal temporary workers because the illegal employees can work for any employer and most legal temporary workers are sponsored by one employer.
At this point, we see where the snake eats its tail. The Biden fever dream of a routine and formal open borders process collapses because without enforcement of any restrictions, there is no deterrence for illegal entry, and, indeed, there is actual incentive for illegal entry. Why wait for a parole application when you can enter illegally and you will not be removed? The reason President Biden’s strategy to deter illegal immigration with legal pathways has failed is because he broke down the legal distinction between the two. Under Biden policy, the treatment of an alien, legal or illegal, is fundamentally the same.
For those in the real world that want to reduce the numbers at the border, there must be real consequences delivered in a timely manner for those who illegally enter. Gaming the asylum system with frivolous claims is a moral outrage and should not be tolerated. The record-breaking 2023 border encounters make clear that you cannot parole your way out of a border crisis. If the policies incentivizing illegal entry remain, the song remains the same.
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