Sometimes you wonder whether the New York Times’ editorial page ever reads its own newspaper’s reporting. A dedicated institutional foe of President Trump, the Times scoffs at the need for an executive order to address the dangerous chaos at the border. Then again, it makes a weird kind of sense: the worse things get at the Mexican border the better, because then they can demand even more services for the sick, the halt, the lame, the blind, the drug dealers, the rapists, the drunk drivers and all the other criminals — not just from Mexico but from Central America as well — who are invading our country. And things are bad:
The number of migrant families crossing the southwest border has once again broken records, with unauthorized entries nearly double what they were a year ago, suggesting that the Trump administration’s aggressive policies have not discouraged new migration to the United States. More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high and a strong sign that stepped-up prosecutions, new controls on asylum and harsher detention policies have not reversed what remains a powerful lure for thousands of families fleeing violence and poverty.
“The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point,” Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told reporters in announcing the new data on Tuesday.
The nation’s top border enforcement officer painted a picture of processing centers filled to capacity, border agents struggling to meet medical needs and thousands of exhausted members of migrant families crammed into a detention system that was not built to house them — all while newcomers continue to arrive, sometimes by the busload, at the rate of 2,200 a day. “This is clearly both a border security and a humanitarian crisis,” Mr. McAleenan said.
Ah, but never let a crisis go to waste!
President Trump has used the escalating numbers to justify his plan to build an expanded wall along the 1,900-mile border with Mexico. But a wall would do little to slow migration, most immigration analysts say. While the exact numbers are not known, many of those apprehended along the southern border, including the thousands who present themselves at legal ports of entry, surrender voluntarily to Border Patrol agents and eventually submit legal asylum claims.
The main problem is not one of uncontrolled masses scaling the fences, but a humanitarian challenge created as thousands of migrant families surge into remote areas where the administration has so far failed to devote sufficient resources to care for them, as is required under the law.
In other words, the more illegal immigration we get, the more the government is going to be forced to provide for these people, the more free stuff it’s going to have to give them, the larger the welfare state in going to grow, and the more swollen the ranks of Democrat voters are going to become. The cheaper and more obvious solution: to prevent them from entering the country at all, except through legal channels, never will occur to the Times as it uses the ideals of Christian charity against America. (This is otherwise known as Alinsky Rule No. 4.) And yet as ever-sicker “migrants” continue showing up, bringing their infectious diseases — many of which had been essentially eradicated in the United States — with them, the greater the cry will be to admit them — for “humanitarian” reasons.
In early January, a mumps outbreak at the privately-run Pine Prairie U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center put Mejia and hundreds of other detainees on lockdown. “When there is just one person who is sick, everybody pays,” Mejia, 19, said in a phone interview from the Pine Prairie center describing weeks without visits and access to the library and dining hall. His attorney wasn’t allowed in, but his immigration court case continued anyway – over a video conference line. On Feb. 12, the judge ordered Mejia deported back to Honduras.
The number of people amassed in immigration detention under the Trump administration has reached record highs, raising concerns among migrant advocates about disease outbreaks and resulting quarantines that limit access to legal services.
Gee, that’s too damn bad. But Democrats, whose ranks seem positively stuffed with “advocates” for this and that progressive cause, don’t care about your children or mine; they’re just collateral damage on the road to the fundamental transformation of the U.S. into a third-world banana republic ruled by a rainbow-coalition set of caudillos.
Which, in addition to the funds now being allocated under the emergency declaration, is why the president is going to ask for an additional $8.6 billion in wall funding tomorrow as part of his fiscal 2020 budget:
President Trump will ask Congress on Monday for $8.6 billion in additional funding to build a wall along the United States border with Mexico, a person familiar with the details said on Sunday.
The request, which will come as part of Mr. Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal, is certain to reignite a conflict with Democrats that led to a record-long government shutdown this year. Mr. Trump had previously requested $5.7 billion to build a wall but was rebuffed by both Democrats and Republicans, who approved a spending bill that did not include the funding.
That resulted in Mr. Trump declaring a national emergency on the border with Mexico to access billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to build a wall there.
Larry Kudlow, the head of Mr. Trump’s National Economic Council, confirmed the request for wall money on “Fox News Sunday.” Mr. Kudlow added that he supposes “there will be” a fight over that spending in Congress. “I would just say that the whole issue of the wall and border security is of paramount importance,” Mr. Kudlow said. “We have a crisis down there.”
As even the New York Times admits! The only question is what to do about it.
Mr. Trump’s budget is most likely dead on arrival in Congress, where Democrats now control the House. Many of his past proposals, including cuts in some federal spending programs, additional border wall funding and a large federal infrastructure initiative, failed to advance in Congress even when Republicans controlled both chambers.
The Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party dies hard, but die it must if the rest of us are to live long and prosper.
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