Lately, the border has been getting a lot of attention in the news. And there is a good reason for this. There’s next to no security at the southern border. Specifically, Texas’ border and immigrants are flooding across it in historically high numbers. In 2020, border patrol had an estimated 400,000 encounters with immigrants, which rose to a staggering 1.6 million encounters in 2021, after only one year with Biden as president. The numbers have continued to grow since then, and during 2022 and 2023, the total came to an estimated 4.6 million or 6.2 million for Biden’s presidency thus far. Another way to think about it is that 70,000 fans took to the Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada, this past Super Bowl Sunday. Also, 72,000 fans attended the Super Bowl last year, and 70,000 were expected the year before. The numbers from all three years show how many immigrants crossed the border last month. If that doesn’t concern you, I applaud your ability to remain calm.
So, what’s the reason for such a sharp rise in immigrant encounters? The most obvious reason is that Joe Biden was elected president because the increase coincides almost precisely with his getting into office. Looking into the issue a little deeper, Joe Biden and his administration essentially invited in all those illegal immigrants with incredibly soft deportation policies. They promised those immigrants a lot of incentives and free stuff.
I have no problems with having immigrants come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families; I think that’s a very good thing. But my tolerance only applies to legal immigrants. If your first act with coming to this country is to break our laws by coming across the border illegally, and it wasn’t done in an act of absolute desperation because you’re fleeing a government that wants to kill you, my country probably doesn’t want you. If it’s done through the proper channels, by all means, come in; otherwise, please don’t come. Or as Vice President Harris put it, “Do not come, do not come.” And yes, an argument could probably be made that we could make some improvements to the immigration system, but having millions of people coming in simultaneously is unsustainable.
This is how I think of the current situation. Imagine you are in an airplane high up at cruising altitude for a commercial flight and suddenly lose cabin pressure. The oxygen masks drop out of the overhead compartments because there’s not enough air to breathe. Everyone only has about a minute to put one on before they lose consciousness. Anyone who’s flown knows that you’re supposed to first put one on yourself, then your family or anyone close to you. You’re instructed to do this because if you lose consciousness, you can’t help anyone, and your chances of survival, as does everyone else’s chances, diminish accordingly. I think the same thing for the border. Yes, I want to help people, but if we let everyone in simultaneously with no restrictions, it’s practically guaranteed we’ll overwhelm our resources or cause a substantial economic or humanitarian crisis. Collapsing our country won’t help anyone; it will cause far more harm than good if any good comes from it. We have to take care of the needs of the US first; then, and only then, can we start sending assistance elsewhere. By doing things that way, we can help far more people than if we tried to do all the good things simultaneously.
That’s the most straightforward metaphor I know of, but I have many more concerns with immigration than just trying to do more than we can handle. Many people are under the misconception that the immigrants coming through the southern border are just from Latin America or South America. People from the countries in either of these regions make up most of the immigrants, but they’re not the only ones. People are coming from all across the globe. Below is a graphic that shows all the countries’ border patrols encountered in the last two years. But remember, these numbers are just the ones they are encountering. The estimates go anywhere from 3 to 10 times these numbers are making it through unseen.
You probably noticed that some countries listed above aren’t entirely friendly to the US. Russia should be the most obvious because, well, they’re Russia, and they’re at war with Ukraine. Another is China and Turkey. Turkey may not be the most apparent, but that’s frequently a stepping stone for Syrian nationals before they make their way to the US or Europe. Syria is a hotbed for ISIS activity and other terrorist groups in the Middle East, so that should give you a little pause knowing that the border is open to them. Some of those Syrians have appeared on the FBI’s terror watch list. Some of them have, of course, been apprehended and deported, but those are just the ones we knew about. Who knows how many more have gotten by? Also, the border is akin to a revolving door, and there isn’t a whole lot stopping those deported Syrians from turning around and trying to come back in again.
Another consequence of open borders is that human trafficking has increased substantially. Activities from Coyotes (cartel human traffickers) have increased from around 200 to 300%. Many cartels have almost entirely stopped smuggling drugs across the border and switched to human trafficking because, in the last few years, it has become a more lucrative activity. This is making cartels an obscene amount of money, which amounts to billions of dollars for them. The trafficking of children accounts for a substantial amount of the persons crossing over and back across the border. Close to 4 million children are trafficked every year, and this number is increasing.
The drug Fentanyl has also become a significant problem. Since 2020, more than 10,000 people have died from fentanyl poisoning. Fentanyl is an incredibly potent anesthetic. Legally, it is used in many surgeries by doctors. You were probably administered it if you had a procedure in the last few years. However, it must be given in exact dosages to avoid overdosing. A dosage the size of a grain of rice is enough to kill you and probably everyone around you at this moment. Even the dust from creating the drug that settles on anything someone is going to consume is enough to kill someone. I hope it comes as no surprise that drug cartels, through the distribution of their chief export, don’t have the best interest of their clients in mind and have begun cutting their drugs with fentanyl. I don’t support using any prescribed drug beyond its intended use, but people are overdosing on Adderall and Percocet because they were laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl requires such a controlled dose to be used safely, but many drug cartels think their suppliers are overselling this product and either ignore what the proper amount is or don’t care and add in a deadly amount. And many of the fentanyl suppliers are directly linked to the Chinese government. So, in my opinion, at least, the CCP working with the drug cartels could be an attempt by them to do the US harm through these drugs intentionally.
All this information may seem overwhelming, but there are still glimmers of hope. Recently, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has deployed the Texas National Guard, and they have begun laying out razor wire and constructing barricades to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across the border. This is in direct defiance of the federal government.
As Greg Abbott stated, “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis also vowed to send the Florida National Guard down to the border to support and assist Texas’s efforts. Also, several states, including Alaska, support Texas’s actions.
US citizens have also begun organizing to protest the federal government’s lack of action at the border. One such group consists of people from several states. They are part of a convoy of Americans fed up with the current administration’s “wide open” border policies and are currently headed to southern states to “shed light” on the migrant crisis.
The “Take Our Border Back” convoy describes itself as a “coalition of concerned Americans from across the nation.”
“This is a lawful, peaceful gathering of concerned Americans,” a January press release from the group stated. “The goal is simple ~ to shed light on the obvious dangers posed by wide open Southern borders.”
The coalition also aims to “request all laws of our U.S. Constitution be immediately upheld,” “call for immediate action to secure our borders before irreversible serious consequences befall our nation,” and put an end to drug and human trafficking.
Even business tycoon Elon Musk has gotten fed up with the situation. Musk said on the platform X, “Biden’s strategy is very simple: 1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible. 2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority – a one-party state. That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective.”
Then also, to give credence to the idea that some within the US government are not working in the best interests of the states, US Rep Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was seen addressing a crowd in Somalia. She told supporters that her “No. 1 job” in Congress is to protect Somalia’s interests and territory. That statement seems somewhat at odds with her congressional duty and violates it. There is also evidence that she married her brother to give him legal immigrant status and get him into the United States without going through the usual screening process. You can draw your own conclusions about her actions.
But a concern of mine with the border situation is terrorism. More specifically, I’m worried that some bad actor will sneak a nuke, a dirty bomb, or an EMP device through the border and set it off, potentially affecting tens of thousands. This has been a concern of mine for some 20 years, long before the current border crisis, and I’m actually a little surprised this hasn’t happened yet. Also, for the last few years, I’ve been watching the food processing plants that have started burning to the ground in unusual numbers. At the time of writing this, I think I’m at probably 200+, which, and I’m not positive, seems to coincide with what started happening at the border. Is it due to domestic terrorists or other related problems? I don’t know, but it looks suspicious.
I hope you found this article insightful. Thank you for reading. And if you want to help do something about this problem, please get in touch with your local representative.
