Across the globe, hostile nations such as Russia are using migration as a weapon of war. War is being waged with migrants, instead of tanks, to destabilize and even bankrupt a country and facilitate terrorist attacks from within.
Migration is being used to attack Finland, Italy, France, Poland, and—no surprise—the United States. But the Biden administration is asleep at the switch, oblivious to the threat.
Although most of the migrants crossing the U.S. southern border are in search of economic opportunity, some are used as tools by our enemies.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is rightly sounding the alarm about what he calls an “invasion.”
So are 10 top-ranking former FBI executives, who sent a warning letter to Congress on Jan. 17 about a “new and unfamiliar” type of warfare. Heed their words.
The letter points to the danger of a large number of military-age men “who could begin attacking gatherings of unarmed citizens,” duplicating the horrors of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
The letter also warns that some of the migrants are on the terror watchlist or are from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism.
Europe gets it. French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin cautioned back in October 2023 that failing to expel illegal immigrants has led to past terrorist incidents, and will again.
The left claims it’s “racist” to refer to migration as an “invasion.” Nonsense. Ask Finland.
Finland locked its eastern border in November 2023, after Russia flooded the country with migrants from as far away as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria, likely in retaliation for Finland joining NATO.
In the Western Hemisphere, the anti-U.S. government of Nicaragua is doing what it can, welcoming charter flights of Haitians and Cubans heading to the U.S. border. The Ortega government uses migration as a way to attack the United States, The Associated Press reports.
Texas is on the receiving end. Mr. Abbott has laid miles of razor wire along the Rio Grande to deter border crossers.
Last fall, Customs and Border Protection officials, on order from President Joe Biden, began cutting Texas’s wire to let migrants in. President Biden has made the CBP into a concierge service for migrants.
On Oct. 26, 2023, when the CBP spotted several hundred migrants waiting on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande, it used a forklift to pull Texas’s fencing out of the ground and hold the wire high enough to allow 300 migrants to walk into Texas. That’s when Mr. Abbott went to federal court to sue.
The Biden administration insists that under the Constitution, immigration is exclusively a federal matter. But a federal district court, though declining to halt the wire cutting, found that the feds are “flouting their duties at the border,” enticing people to cross and causing “irreparable harm.” All true.
On appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered President Biden’s Border Patrol to stop cutting wire.
Then, President Biden leapfrogged over the Fifth Circuit, going directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices have yet to rule on the merits, but on Jan. 22, they lifted the restraining order to temporarily allow the Border Patrol to resume cutting Texas’s wire.
Even so, the justices did not bar Mr. Abbott from laying more wire. And he’s doing just that, vowing to protect his state from what literally is an “invasion.”
Liberal critics mock Mr. Abbott for invoking the invasion clause of the Constitution, which says that if a state is “invaded,” it can defend itself in the absence of federal help.
A federal appeals court ruled in the 1996 case Padavan v. U.S. that “for a state to be afforded the protections of the Invasion Clause,” it must be under attack by “another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.” But that 20th-century definition of invasion is outdated. Now, war is being waged with migrants, not just missiles.
The letter to Congress warns that an “invasion of the homeland is unfolding now.” Military-age men from Russia and China pose “an alarming and perilous” threat.
On Jan. 29, attorneys general from 26 states—all Republicans—sent a strong message supporting Mr. Abbott and condemning President Biden’s open-border policy. Several of these states have also dispatched state troopers or National Guard troops to help Mr. Abbott.
“If the Biden administration won’t do its job to secure our border and keep Americans safe,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said, “it should step aside and let the States do the job for them.”
Amen.
