Mitch McConnell: Expect Some 18,000 Illegal Immigrants Trying to Breach Our Mexican Border Each and Every Day

WASHINGTON, DC, Apr 28 — They don’t get it. We, the people, aren’t complaining simply because illegal immigrants seek to cross the Mexican border. No, the problem is that there are too many migrants – including drug dealers – and more and more of them have essentially been encouraged to breach the barrier by President Biden and his administration. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed. So, why does the administration continue to come up with ways to make it easier for them to enter the country?

Historian Victor Davis Hanson says that when Mr. Biden took office, “The once secure border of 2020 vanished. More than 2 million people have crossed the southern border illegally in the past 12 months.  Millions more are on the way…The Biden administration unilaterally and simply destroyed existing immigration law.”

Republicans find the increasing numbers of undocumented migrants at our southern border “worrisome,” while Democrats apparently have no worries. A recent Gallup poll found that 68% of Republican respondents are “very worried,” and only 18% of Democrats agreed. 

Yet, mainstream Democrats in Congress – namely, Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly [D-AZ], Joe Manchin [D-WV], and Jon Tester [D-MT] – admit that President Biden and their progressive colleagues have got it wrong. In fact, they’ve joined with Republican lawmakers in proposing legislation that would prevent the president from making matters worse at the border by doing away with the Trump-era immigration rule, Title 42, a policy initiative that helps the Border Patrol manage illegals seeking to enter the country. The measure would keep Title 42 in place until two months after the COVID pandemic is no longer declared a national emergency. It would also require the administration to submit an actionable plan to deal with the increase of illegal immigrants that is expected.

According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “The Biden Administration is on track for another record-shattering year on our southern border — in all the wrong ways. The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly preparing for up to 18,000 attempted border crossings per day. President Biden’s border crisis is a symptom of the modern Democratic Party’s inability to support any remotely reasonable policy of border enforcement. Thus far, the Biden Administration has kept the chaos somewhat in check by leaning on emergency authorities specific to the COVID pandemic. To be clear, even with these Title 42 authorities in place, our border’s still been in crisis. Last month was the worst February in more than 20 years. We just saw the worst 12-month period for illegal crossings since at least 1960. This is with Title 42 in place. Just imagine if President Biden kills it.”

In Congressional committee hearings this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted that by scrapping Title 42, “there is no question if we encounter 18,000 people in a single day that will seriously strain our capabilities.” And Congressman Chuck Fleischmann [R-TN] pointed out that the loss of the Title 42 rule would mean that the illegals would not be sent back from whence they came. He noted that “Many migrants our agents encounter are given a notice to appear and sent on their way into the interior of the United States to await a court date, often years into the future. It only encourages more people to come.”

To say that the president’s border surge makes life difficult for all Americans – particularly for those living close to the border – is an understatement, at best. It has a deadly consequence, as well. The Mexican cartels are using the surge to peddle opioids, fentanyl in particular, throughout the U.S. Last year some 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses as a result. The Biden administration has apparently turned a blind eye toward this murderous side effect, forcing the Republican governors of 26 states to do what the federal government should be doing by tasking their law enforcement to focus on the threat. They formed a Border Strike Force to “disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations…The porousness of the Southern Border is an open door to transnational criminal organizations that use it to traffic drugs that feed the addiction epidemic throughout the United States.”

In a Memorandum of Understanding, the American Governors’ Border Strike Force stated that in the absence of federal leadership, it was “partnering across state lines…to target cartels and criminal networks financially and operationally.”