The Biden Administration is proposing new legislation in response to the national crisis at the southern border, but Congress and the American public have every reason to be wary of another bait-and-switch.
The White House’s proposal was released at the end of last month and is part of a $100-billion-plus package largely centered around foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine. On the White House’s fact-sheet, the border security provisions are discussed at the bottom, signaling their low level of importance to the administration. Still, the proposal represents a rare admission by the White House that increased security at the border is necessary, so it’s worth looking at the merits and demerits of its proposal.
There are pieces of the legislation designed to appeal to border security advocates, including the addition of 1,300 Border Patrol agents and 375 new immigration judges. The addition of a large number of agents in particular could help alleviate some of the strain at the border, if they were allowed to do their job. Unfortunately, this administration has spent the last three years treating Border Patrol agents with contempt, pressuring them to process illegal aliens swiftly instead of focusing on the security aspect of their jobs. Under a serious administration, adding Border Patrol agents to the line would help solve some of the security problems at the border. Under this administration, it’s unlikely to make much of a difference.
Other items proposed in the legislation include “support for eligible arrivals” and an “expansion of lawful pathways.” These proposals have nothing to do with border security and should be rejected out of hand. If enacted, they would resettle more illegal aliens without legitimate asylum claims into the country against the interests and the wishes of the American people. Foreign nationals seeking to come to the U.S. already have the ability to seek asylum or apply for a green card. There is no reason to expand pathways for legal immigration at this time other than the Biden Administration’s agenda-driven desire to import more migrants into the country.
The most insidious part of this legislation, however, is the proposal for “additional grants to local governments and non-profits” in order to provide food, housing and other services to the millions of illegal aliens the Biden Administration has allowed to come into the country. This proposal would force taxpayers across the nation to fund anti-borders policies in so-called sanctuary cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and would undermine the efforts of border states to hold those cities accountable.
Indeed, this provision is likely the driving force behind the White House’s legislation, as the administration continues to take criticism from ideological allies, including Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams, whose cities have been overwhelmed by the large influx of illegal aliens. The administration is simply attempting to create a slush fund for these cities under the guise of a border security bill.
Sanctuary cities, after spending years proclaiming that all foreign nationals are welcome, are now collapsing under the weight of their own sanctimony. If these cities want relief from their own policies, they should change their policies instead of demanding that taxpayers bail out their malfeasance. It would be a glaring betrayal of trust to force the American people to rescue sanctuary cities from the predictable results of their own destructive policies. It would be equally unconscionable to send more taxpayer dollars to extremist anti-borders non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), as the administration appears to be proposing.
An investigation by the Immigration Reform Law Institute earlier this year revealed that American families have been shelling out tens of millions of dollars to NGOs to provide legal services to illegal aliens, and now the Biden Administration wants us to pay even more. This unacceptable proposal will only provide yet further incentive for illegal immigration. If the Biden Administration were serious about securing the border, it would request more funding to send illegal aliens back to their home countries instead of continuing to shake down taxpayers to provide them access to lawyers through NGO’s.
The Biden Administration is clearly feeling the heat as the results of its dereliction of duty at the border become more and more clear, but this “border security” proposal is nothing more than a Trojan horse designed to continue funding for its disastrous anti-border policies. If the administration actually wanted to end this crisis once and for all, it would implement E-Verify at the national level, reinstate the successful Remain-in-Mexico policy and resume construction of the border wall. These are the tools that are necessary to secure the border and restore America’s sovereignty.
The crisis at the border has become a calamity, and the White House’s latest proposal would only deepen the disaster. The American people deserve a government that shows leadership aimed at actually solving problems, not to have their intelligence insulted by even more anti-borders poison tacked onto foreign aid packages and disguised as law-and-order solutions.
William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.