Said comic possum Pogo, in a parody of Admiral Perry’s quote about meeting the enemy and their being ours, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” That was 1970. Pogo creator Walt Kelly was spoofing history – about the pollution issue. Sometimes, we are the problem.
Two years ago, the Biden-Harris team pointed to endemic global poverty south of the border – and called it the “root cause” of America’s border crisis. Harris was “put in charge” to fix it.
Since then, she and Biden have done nothing, worse than nothing. Biden is on the border to pretend he is leading – he is not. They suspended laws that kept order, reduced crime, and held violence at bay. They waved in four million illegal aliens, many trafficking drugs, outlawed the very word “illegal aliens,” and watched illegal entry spike by 35 percent.
Now, in a madcap exercise in “equity” – sharing America with the world – they want to lift Title 42. This will, by all predictions, create a crisis on steroids. While delayed by the Supreme Court until early 2023, this specter is real.
Let’s be honest: Civil disorder, poverty, crime, human and drug trafficking, and violence against women and kids is “daily fare” around the world, especially south of the border. This warrants rethinking US foreign policy, seeking outcome-focused interventions, more training in law enforcement, rule of law, democracy, work ethic, education, and foreign investment.
It does not warrant opening the United States up to all those ills, imagining that by swinging our doors wide to humanity, putting America at risk and offering what we have built, we solve anything.
Biden, Harris, and all those who – for whatever conscience-based, political, or Machiavellian reasons – think that a de facto open border will solve the world’s problems, or deliver some relief without imperiling hundreds of millions of American citizens including our kids, are nuts.
What we are witnessing – and if Title 42, which allows deportation for communicable diseases, is lifted we will see in spades – is a wild rush by caravans of humans who think America is here for the taking.
And why do we see this? Why are the numbers getting worse, including young people – especially women and girls – being trafficked, beaten, raped, abused, and shattered by those who profit from crime?
Why are these human calamities – never in such staggering numbers or severity – tied to human trafficking, sex trafficking, and drug trafficking, now happening? Because the Biden-Harris border policies promote them. Truth is, these Biden-Harris and Democrat policies are inviting, facilitating, and dramatically increasing human rights abuses and drug and human trafficking. Far from being humane, these pro-trafficking, pro-caravan, pro-border bust policies are causing these human rights abuses – all the while making the traffickers rich.
This is criminal behavior – unforgivably shortsighted, wrongheaded, and needs to be stopped, the messages, caravans, and looking the other way stopped, the drug, human and sex traffickers stopped – the human abuse stopped.
What is being reported now at the border, and in towns and cities to which the Biden-Harris Administration is transporting these illegally crossing humans – is collateral damage caused by the Biden-Harris pro-trafficking policies. They explain mass pain, suffering, and overdoses.
What is being reported is new. Social workers, volunteers, and public health and safety experts are seeing thousands of illegals with trafficking-related “PTSD,” abuse of a kind not seen before or in these numbers, needing physical, emotional, and psychological support.
So, let us get back to basics. Why is this happening, and why is it occurring with unprecedented damage and in unprecedented numbers to those herded like cattle, treated worse than cattle? Because the Biden-Harris and Democrat “open door” policies are the engine, they encourage this.
Bottom line: Pogo was on to something. He was right about where and how many problems start and end. More often than not, a “root cause” – if anyone really cared – is not far but near. The reason we have this border crisis is not someone else’s fault, it is ours – the Biden-Harris Administration’s fault. Rather than deter crime, they invite it. To cite Pogo, or apply his wisdom to Biden, Harris, and modern Democrats, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Prepare for a coming border crisis … on steroids.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
