OPINION:
When it comes to our southern border, President Biden has done the bidding of one entity, and it sure isn’t the United States. It’s the Mexican drug cartels.
Under Mr. Biden’s watch, our southern border has become little more than an arbitrary line on a map. In the past two years of the Biden administration, we have seen a record 7 million illegal crossings. To put that into perspective: Under Mr. Biden, a number of illegal migrants equivalent to the entire population of Arizona have crossed our southern border illegally. Meanwhile, Mexican cartels have seen record profits as Americans scramble to contend with the fallout of Mr. Biden’s border policies.
Border Patrol agents have been swamped with catching and processing migrants who have entered the country illegally. While the agents can typically handle 2,000 to 3,000 migrant encounters per day, with a maximum of 5,000, there have been, on average, nearly 6,000 attempted crossings per day since Mr. Biden has been in office. Last week, we saw a peak of 10,000 encounters per day.
Before the pandemic, under President Donald Trump, we saw a record-low number of illegal border crossings. Our posture on border security matters, as clearly demonstrated by what we saw thanks to Trump-era policies such as Remain in Mexico, which ensured that Customs and Border Protection processed migrants’ asylum claims while they waited in Mexico. But what will happen now that Mr. Biden has ended Title 42?
Without Title 42, the COVID-19-era rule that allowed CBP agents to easily expel illegal migrants, the crisis at the southern border verges on catastrophe. CBP officials said Friday that as many as 14,000 migrants per day could soon attempt to enter the U.S. southern border illegally. Such predictions may prove correct if the past week has been any indicator.
A number of encounters as great as 14,000 is nearly than three times the amount that CBP agents can handle. Can you imagine if this were the case with your fire department? What if it could handle only one-third of the house fires in your community? Without Title 42, the situation at our border is cataclysmic.
Title 42 allowed more than half of the illegal migrants encountered at our southern border to be expelled absent the lengthy bureaucratic process that CBP agents must normally follow. In fact, since the start of the Biden administration, more than 3 million illegal immigrants have been expelled under Title 42, twice as many as were expelled under the slower processes.
Mr. Biden knows what the coming weeks will bring, which is why he has sent 1,500 active-duty members of the U.S. military to the border in anticipation of the pending wave of illegal migrants. But the troops sent to the border are going to be used to process (read: catch and release) illegal migrants. In this case, Mr. Biden isn’t trying to secure the border but rather facilitate further lawbreaking.
Still, the White House continues to operate under the false assumption that the vast majority of those encountered at the border are here with a legitimate asylum claim. While this may be the case for a small minority, most are simply economic migrants. If they were truly seeking asylum, why are they not seeking refuge in any of the three, four or at times even seven countries they travel through before even reaching the U.S.-Mexico border?
Sadly, the Biden administration has seen it as their mission to bow to the unquenchable thirst of their far-left flank. Regardless of the truth, they see no reason not to accept all who claim asylum.
Undoubtedly, drug cartels control the flow of illegal migration to our southern border. Cartels make around $4,000 per migrant they traffic, regardless of whether they cross the border. The cartels already make around $25 billion through illegal drugs, and profits from human trafficking amount to around $12 billion on top of that for a combined $37 billion. That’s about as much as the gross domestic product of Estonia. The cartels see an opportunity to profit at the expense of human lives and our national security.
Facilitated by Mr. Biden’s policies, the cartel’s trafficking operation is not only a gross human rights violation; it’s an affront to American sovereignty. Ending Title 42 will only make things worse.
• Rep. Pat Fallon represents Texas’ 4th Congressional District. An Air Force veteran, he is a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the House Armed Services Committee.
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