Biden border causes ‘crisis’ in DC
Opinion by Byron York, Washington Examiner, 7/29/22
Did you know that it is still the position of the Biden administration that the U.S.-Mexico border is “closed?” “The fact of the matter is, the border is closed,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in late June. “Our border is not open,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a month earlier.
Like the word “recession,” which has been redefined in recent days, the word “closed” has taken on a new meaning in the Biden era. Since President Joe Biden took office, would-be illegal crossers have flocked to the border. The number of Border Patrol encounters with illegal crossers went from 646,822 in fiscal year 2020 to 1,956,519 in 2021 to 2,002,604 so far in 2022 — and there are still a few months left in this fiscal year. More than that, the Biden administration has allowed at least 1.25 million of those illegal crossers to stay in the country. The number could reach 2 million if the so-called gotaways are included, referring to those crossers who eluded U.S. authorities.
So the administration has a very strange definition of “closed.” But top officials like Mayorkas could make the claim with some impunity because most Americans don’t live close enough to the border to see what is going on. And when the administration has relocated illegal border crossers inland, it has been done on a secret, middle-of-the-night basis. The idea is to keep the reality of the border mess away from most Americans.
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That’s where Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott comes in. In May, after Biden announced he would allow still more illegal border crossers into the country — he would so by rescinding Title 42, the Trump-era regulation that allowed U.S. authorities to turn back crossers in order to stop the spread of COVID-19 — Abbott had had enough. His state has borne the burden of hundreds of thousands of illegal crossers, and the governor decided to send some of the unlawful migrants to Washington, D.C., where the president could see them firsthand.
Abbott began sending buses of crossers to the nation’s capital. There was no coercion involved — Texas officials made clear to the migrants that boarding a bus was entirely voluntary. Many accepted the offer because making the 1,766-mile journey between, say, Eagle Pass, Texas, and Washington, D.C., got them much closer to where they wanted to settle in the United States.
In addition to sending people, Abbott was sending a message: A reckless border policy has consequences. Allowing millions of people to enter the country illegally, and then stay in the country, creates enormous burdens on communities and governments and everyday citizens. The Biden administration cannot expect to pursue such a policy without pushback from those who are most affected by it.
And that number of affected Americans now includes the residents of Washington, D.C. Concern over the mass arrivals has been rising since the first buses arrived in May. Now, more than 200 buses have made the trip. On Thursday, Mayor Muriel Bowser sounded an alarm, declaring a “humanitarian crisis” and asking Biden to deploy the National Guard to help the city deal with the 4,000 illegal border crossers who have come to Washington.
Bowser is asking for federal help to house and process the new arrivals, who are not only from Texas but also from Arizona, where Republican Gov. Doug Ducey picked up on Abbott’s idea and also began sending illegal border crossers to Washington. Bowser denounced the governors’ “cruel political gamesmanship” and said: “Our ability to assist people in need at this scale is very limited. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and working with the Biden-Harris administration on a real solution, Govs. Abbott and Ducey have decided to use desperate people to score political points.”
“At this scale?” Bowser is throwing up her hands at the arrival of just 4,000 illegal border crossers? What are the border state governors supposed to do with the nearly 4 million encounters over the last two years? And the 1.25 million, maybe 2 million, illegal border crossers who stayed in the U.S.?
“DC is experiencing a fraction of the disastrous impact the border crisis has caused Texas,” Abbott tweeted in response. “Mayor Bowser should stop attacking Texas for securing the border and demand Joe Biden do his job.”
It’s unclear what happens next. Bowser seems likely to get the help she has requested, or at least part of it, if only because the Biden White House does not want the border mess it has created to spread to a highly visible place like Washington, D.C. There are a lot more journalists in and around Washington than in McAllen, Texas.
Whatever happens, in the end, Abbott has made an extremely important point. Chaos on the border is a national problem, not just a problem for the four states that border Mexico. Biden has not visited the border to see the impact his policies have had there. Abbott and Ducey are helping him learn without ever leaving the White House.