The Fiasco at the Border

Impeach Biden.

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“No great nation can be in a position where they can’t control their borders. It matters how you control your borders. Not just for immigration, but it matters for drugs, terror, and a whole range of things.”

So said then-Senator and candidate for the Democratic nomination for president Joe Biden, back in 2007. What changed between then and today? The Biden administration is abetting an invasion explicitly to displace the existing electorate and bolster Democratic power for years to come. The Founders couldn’t have conceived that anyone would ever do such a thing, but that is exactly what’s happening.

As the Center for Immigration Studies’ Andrew R. Arthur details, a whopping 371,000¹ illegal aliens were “encountered” by border agents in December 2023, a new record and 23.5% increase from November.² The government uses the euphemism encountered as opposed to arrested because the vast, vast majority of these people are released into the interior of the country despite the fact that federal law mandates all illegal aliens must be detained until the conclusion of their legal proceedings.

Arguably nothing is more infuriating about this, Andrew McCarthy points out, than the various “parole scams” that Biden uses. The president doesn’t have legal authority to parole illegals into the U.S. and is limited to allowing individual aliens in “on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” Only Congress has the power to expand that authority, and yet Biden has gotten away with it through edict.

The most fraudulent of the parole programs is the Biden CBP One App, which allows illegals who’ve made it to central and northern Mexico to literally schedule their illegal entry — on the cell phones they’re given for free, courtesy of the American taxpayer — by making arrangements at Southwest border ports. Border Patrol (the Welcoming Committee) is forced to roll out the red carpet along with a work permit. These inadmissible migrants are somehow not illegal because they’ve used the Biden app and gotten a parole Biden has no legitimate authority to grant. Then there’s also Biden’s “CHNV parole” program, which is available to nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and allows entry by some 360,000 of these “migrants” per year.

And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that what we’re witnessing is indeed an invasion, albeit one facilitated by our own government in order to shift the political calculus.³ Though it’s true that a majority of the illegal aliens who’ve poured across the southern border over the past three years have been unarmed, it’s safe to assume that at least 1,000 to 10,000 have been armed. A group of former national-security officials, convinced that we have been invaded and are vulnerable to an October 7–style terrorist rampage, just published a letter spotlighting the millions of “military aged men” who have infiltrated, many from countries designated as terrorism sponsors. Echoing this letter’s well-supported concerns, the House Homeland Security Committee reports that 169 aliens were found to have been on the terrorist watch list⁴—to go with a staggering 35,433 with criminal records⁵ that have landed them in custody, including 598 known gang members.

That is why Texas governor Greg Abbott has rightly invoked the Constitution’s “Invasion Clause.” As Andrew McCarthy notes, “The clause’s ostensible relevance is that, if there has been an invasion, it is constitutionally valid for states to band with each other and put down the invasion even if Congress has not consented.” It’s therefore no surprise that 25 Republican governors signed a letter in support of Texas’s defensive operations at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, which has become the epicenter of the border crisis. After weeks of wrangling between the State of Texas and the Department of Homeland Security, Texas officials finally sealed off the area from US Border Patrol and continued to install razor wire and other barriers amid protests from the White House and the Supreme Court. Texas is now in open revolt against Washington amid its effort to enforce federal law in ways Biden won’t. Amazingly, the federal government is now treating Greg Abbott, not the flood of illegal migrants, as the problem.

Defending his actions in a recent statement, Abbott declared:

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… James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and other visionaries who wrote the US Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats… For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary…

It’s important to note that the Supreme Court didn’t order Texas to do anything. It merely vacated an order by the Fifth Circuit that, during the pendency of an ongoing lawsuit between the feds and the state, barred federal authorities from cutting concertina wire that Texas has installed. In other words, the Supreme Court held that, for now, the lower courts cannot stop federal authorities from dismantling barriers—but that Supreme Court action did not direct Texas to do anything. The Court did not tell Texas that it can’t take action to protect its sovereignty and prevent intruders, because to have done so would have been constitutionally dubious for the same reasons Justice Antonin Scalia explained nearly a dozen years ago in his Arizona v. United States opinion—which Greg Abbott cited.

Scalia wrote: “As a sovereign, Arizona has the inherent power to exclude persons from its territory, subject only to those limitations expressed in the Constitution or constitutionally imposed by Congress.” (And in Texas’s current case, there is no relevant constitutional limitation or congressional imposition.)

Later in his separate Arizona writing, Scalia continued: “(A)fter the adoption of the Constitution there was some doubt about the power of the federal government to control immigration, but no doubt about the power of the states to do so.” (Emphasis added.)

Approaching his denouement, Scalia said the following: “But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the states that support it predicted: A federal government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the states’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign states at the mercy of the federal executive’s refusal to enforce the nation’s immigration laws?”

It would seem that the answer is “yes.” Substitute “Texas” for “Arizona,” and nothing else has changed today.

After years of letting illegals waltz into the country, and after Kamala Harris, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre have repeatedly stated that “the border is secure,” last Friday the White House issued a statement from the president finally calling the situation at the border a “crisis.”⁶ The statement is intended to support “negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators” on legislation to address said crisis. The actual legislative language hasn’t been released, but measures leaked to the media wouldn’t solve anything and are ridiculous. Included is a provision allowing for the arrival of 5,000 illegal aliens a day—which would compute to nearly 2 million per year (roughly the Biden annual rate since 2021).⁷

The whole thing is absurd: According to Biden’s statement on the Senate deal, once that 5,000 number is reached it would give the president “a new emergency authority to shut down the border.” So, that 5,000 figure would be treated as a trigger⁸—but the underlying premise of a trigger number is that the border can be closed — legally and practically — once that chosen number is hit. So, why not just agree that the number should be zero and close the border? If you can stop the 5,001st person from crossing the border, why can’t you stop the first 5,000? The reality is that Biden — or his handlers — want this flood to continue, otherwise this administration would quietly welcome the help of Texas and other states, not make ultimatums and ask for this trigger number.

Moreover, Biden doesn’t need “a new emergency authority” to shut down the border—he already has it.⁹ Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides, “Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens.” Biden simply chooses not to use this power.

The truth is that the border crisis is entirely of this administration’s own making. Biden is flat out refusing to execute federal immigration laws — is refusing to detain illegal aliens as the law requires — and it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen from a president. In the words of U.S. District Court Judge T. Kent Wetherell, that refusal is “akin to posting a flashing ‘Come In, We’re Open’ sign on the southern border.” The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) states that if “an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained for a [removal] proceeding.” It also states that “if an alien asserts a credible fear of persecution, he or she shall be detained for further consideration of the application for asylum.” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito writes that these detention “requirements, as we have held, are mandatory.” Raul Ortiz, whom the Biden administration selected as U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) chief, stated that aliens are likely “turning themselves in because they think they’re going to be released” into the United States—and that’s exactly what’s happening. The awareness of the likelihood of being released is what’s driving the hordes to the border. Border Patrol has effectively been turned into a busing and administrative service because Democrats have rebranded “illegal immigration” as “asylum seeking.”

Joe Biden doesn’t need the permission of congressional Republicans to significantly diminish this crisis. He could unilaterally re-implement the Trump policies he unilaterally destroyed when he signed 94 executive actions in his first 100 days to decimate border security. But he won’t. Recall when he announced that his administration would “reset” immigration-enforcement policies and that it would emphasize “equity.” The Department of Homeland Security then subsequently announced it would apply this notion of “equity” in “the immigration and enforcement context.” Jeffrey Anderson writes that, “In practice, this has meant prioritizing equity over law enforcement—thereby substituting a de facto new immigration policy for Congress’s duly passed policy, which Biden has no constitutional authority to do.”

Biden should be impeached for prioritizing illegals over Americans, replacing Congress’s immigration policy with his own, and failing to fulfill his constitutional responsibility to enforce federal immigration laws. It doesn’t matter that there will never be sufficient Senate votes to convict him. What matters is that this is an election year and national attention would be completely transfixed on the border. Force Senate Democrats to defend Biden’s policies in a nationally televised impeachment trial in the stretch run of an election campaign. Force Biden to reverse course.

1. This is 15,000 larger than the population of Cleveland—in a single month. And it doesn’t include the tens of thousands of additional “got-aways” who evade U.S. agents entirely. The got-away number cannot be known with certainty, but the House Homeland Security Committee estimates that it’s about 50,000 per month—or about 1.7 million since 2021.

2. The numbers were intentionally released 11 days late, and in a Friday, January 26, late-afternoon “news dump.” This was the same day that the E. Jean Carroll verdict was announced.

3. I find it hilarious that Democrats and their faithful mainstream media commentators are so upset that the word “invasion” is being applied here after they’ve spent three years telling us that the three-hour Capitol riot, in which no security personnel were killed, was an “insurrection” and an atrocity on the scale of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor.

4. This might not seem like a lot, but recall what 19 guys with boxcutters managed to accomplish on 9/11.

5. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, out of that total, 3,834 had convictions for assault, battery, or domestic violence; 2,755 had convictions for burglary, robbery, larceny, theft, or fraud; 6,424 had convictions from driving under the influence; 1,191 were convicted of “sexual offenses” including rape; and 161 were convicted of homicide or manslaughter.

6. The only reason the administration is finally admitting this is because it’s an election year and polls show that immigration is one of voters’ top concerns—and Biden’s worst issue. In 6 out of 7 swing states, the crisis at the border is the “single most important issue” to voters, eclipsing the economy.

7. The actual number that would get in would be much higher. The senators’ formula cannot account for “got-aways” (estimated at about 600,000 per year under Biden), and the incentives created by a system allowing millions more to enter illegally will keep the hordes coming, inevitably raising the per-day rates of entry.

8. Remember in the Obama years, when officials said 1,000 a day would overwhelm the system? Now Biden wants to make 5,000 a day the new benchmark of what’s acceptable.

9. Also: When it comes to student loans, Biden’s an all-powerful monarch capable of making debts disappear, but when it comes to enforcing current law as written, he’s powerless without new acts of Congress? Stop.