“Close the border.” That was the demand Sunday evening. It came not from former President Donald Trump, or any of his Republican allies, but from Ingrid Lewis-Martin, chief advisor to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“The federal government needs to do its job,” she said in a TV interview when asked about New York City’s right-to-shelter policy. “We need the federal government, the Congress members, the Senate, and the president to do its job: Close the borders.”
Lewis-Martin isn’t the only senior state or local official demanding that the federal government “do its job” and close the border. The same day Lewis-Martin made her comment, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker wrote to President Biden about the crisis in his state: “Unfortunately, the welcome and aid Illinois has been providing to these asylum seekers has not been matched with support by the federal government. Most critically, the federal government’s lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois.”
And back in Lewis-Martin’s home state, New York, Governor Kathy Hochul went on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday and said, “Well, we want them to have a limit on who can come across the border. It is too open right now. People coming from all over the world are finding their way through simply saying they need asylum. And the majority of them seem to be ending up in the streets of New York. And that is a real problem for New York City, 125,000 newly arrived individuals. And we are being taxed.”
Now for the shocker – these state and local officials now bemoaning the crisis brought home to them by the Biden Administration’s decision not to enforce immigration law and the Biden Administration’s decision not to secure the border are … Democrats.
They are all members of the same political party as President Biden. For years, they have kept their mouths shut as their states and cities have been invaded by thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, overwhelming their states’ and cities’ capacities to handle the massive populations of illegal aliens.
They kept their mouths shut because they knew the masses of illegal aliens arriving in their states and cities was the result of a deliberate decision made by their party’s leaders long ago. It wasn’t an unexpected result, and – to them, at least – it wasn’t an unwelcome result.
So as the illegal aliens arrived – with their interior travel from border cities like McAllen and Eagle Pass in Texas, and Nogales and Yuma in Arizona paid for by U.S. taxpayers – these Democrats who ran the states and cities kept their mouths shut …
Until they couldn’t keep their mouths shut any longer because the overflow finally reached a tipping point, and the already broken social services system was broken beyond repair.
Two months ago, Mayor Adams sent up the warning signal. Paying for the hundred thousand-plus illegal aliens who had chosen to settle in his city would cost $12 billion over the next three years, he said.
Illinois is in the same trouble with illegal aliens. Governor Pritzker’s original $50 billion state budget, for instance, included $220 million for a state-funded health insurance program for illegal aliens. Three months later, his administration realized its projected costs had been vastly underestimated, and the administration adjusted the projected costs to a more realistic $1.1 billion.
Illinois and New York are but two of the locations that have been invaded by illegal aliens. Neither is anywhere close to the southwest border, yet each is, for all intents and purposes, now a border state. In fact, as the documentary we produced almost a decade ago makes clear, because of the ongoing invasion of our nation by illegal aliens, every state is now a border state. It was bad enough a decade ago; now, a decade later, it’s beyond the imagination.
We know the cause of this crisis – the Biden Administration’s decision to reverse the policies of the previous administration. On Day One, Biden terminated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, reinstituted “catch and release,” and ended construction of the border wall. Instead, he and his administration made clear to millions south of the border that our border was open.
The outcome was not surprising. It was predictable. The numbers of illegal aliens crossing our southwest border shot through the roof – from 72,113 encounters in November 2020 (the month Biden was elected) to 173,277 in March of 2021 (two months after Biden took office) to 252,320 in December of 2022. More than 6 million illegal aliens have entered our country since Biden took office. It didn’t happen overnight a month ago; it’s been building and building and building ever since Biden reversed policy.
Now the Biden Administration continues to blithely ignore the crisis its policies have created. News outlets are reporting that the flow of illegal aliens across our southwest border has reached 7,000 per day, close to all-time highs.
It’s gotten so bad that even senior Democrat state and local officials – the ones who have to deal with the real-world consequences of the policies implemented by the Biden Administration – are demanding that the Biden Administration reverse course and close the border.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas relented, and, in what certainly seemed to be an about-face, reversed Biden Administration policy. He declared, “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” and he issued an order waiving 26 different environmental laws to hasten construction of that new border wall.
Asked Thursday if he believes a border wall works, President Biden responded simply, “No.”
Perhaps it’s time for Biden and Mayorkas to have a conversation.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
Jenny Beth Martin on October 7, 2023
