After months of ignoring the problem and demonstrably false claims by his Homeland Security secretary that the southern border is “secure,” President Biden is finally visiting the area this week as part of a trip to Mexico.
Biden’s attempt to show he is doing something about this reminds me of the idiom “closing the barn door after the horse has left.” It’s too little, too late.
Vice President Kamala Harris was initially assigned the task of fixing the problem, but all she did was visit a few Central American countries to find out the “root causes.” The problem has gotten worse and her assignment has been almost universally judged as a failure.
There are “root causes” to the rise in criminal activity around the country, but just as the first response ought to be arresting and jailing criminals in order to protect the public, so, too, should the wall be finished for the same reason. Migrants can apply at established border crossings and have their asylum claims investigated to see if they are coming here for economic benefits or if they fit the legal definition of persecuted.
Andrew Arthur, the Center’s fellow in Law and Policy, elaborates: “The administration claims that this plan will allow aliens ‘to enter the United States lawfully through’ those ports of entry, but in reality ‘entering’ without a visa through a port of entry is as ‘illegal’ as crossing the border without a visa between the ports of entry, regardless of whether you have an appointment to do so.”
Lying in Washington is an art and clearly Jean-Pierre has not been there long enough to even merit an undergraduate degree in misinformation.
The great frustration for many is that the solution is simple, but not applied—finish the wall, deport those here illegally and charge those who have committed crimes while here and either deport or incarcerate them.
Problem solved, but when politicians who have other agendas in mind are in charge, the problems are rarely solved and usually get worse. Even partially closing the “barn door” now won’t help.
