The Border Crisis | Polaris National Security

The policies of the Biden-Harris Administration have created a disastrous border crisis that threatens Americans’ security, and it is only getting worse. Even their Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas admitted the situation at the border is, “worse now than it, frankly, has been in at least 20 years, if not ever.”

There is more fentanyl and deadly drugs passing through our border and killing Americans than ever before. The amount of fentanyl seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) doubled from FY22 to FY23 to a record 27,023 pounds. Tragically, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug and opioid overdoses in 2023 – more than died in the Vietnam War. Many of those deaths are a direct consequence of Biden’s failure to enforce the law and secure our border.

Vicious cartels and human smugglers are waging full-warfare turf battles within miles of the United States, uncovered by most mainstream media. Since Biden and Harris refuse to enforce the law, Congress needs to fund our border agents and fund construction to finish the wall.

What the Biden Administration is NOT doing:

Increasing funding for Border Patrol staffing, recruitment, and retention. In fact, in 2022, the Biden Administration’s anti-law enforcement actions and rhetoric have
likely driven 1,100 CBP agents to leave their job.
Reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy that keeps immigrants seeking asylum in Mexico while their application applications are processed.
Renegotiating the Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs) with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, which would make migrants from these countries seek refuge within their own region instead of coming to the United States. The ACAs also allow the U.S. to send migrants to a safe neighboring country to claim asylum if caught at the U.S. border. President Biden terminated these agreements two weeks after entering office.
Providing funding to finish construction of the Border Wall. While the Trump Administration built 458 miles of wall, funding was previously allocated for 738 miles that was immediately cancelled by Joe Biden.
Millions of illegal immigrants have been caught attempting to cross the border since Biden took office, and 10,000 crossed daily in anticipation of the end of Title 42. Hundreds of thousands of these illegal aliens captured at the border have disappeared into our country’s interior. Meanwhile, the number of Chinese migrants crossing the Southern border has soared from 681 in 2021 to 37,439 last year.
Illicit drugs are flowing into the country at an alarming rate, with thousands of pounds of deadly fentanyl and methamphetamine seized at the southern border on a regular basis. Last year alone, California National Guard-supported counter-drug operations seized a record 62,000 pounds of fentanyl. Since the start of Operation Lone Star, Texas has seized over 481 million lethal doses of fentanyl—enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States and Mexico. This is an unprecedented national crisis occurring because Democrats refuse to protect our southern border.

The Failed Biden-Harris Approach

A nation is defined by its borders. If we can’t control who is coming in and out, we aren’t even conducting an essential function of government: providing law and order.
The root cause of the problem isn’t Central America; it’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House’s weakness on crime and illegal immigration has been heard loud and clear. As a direct result, illegal immigration has skyrocketed under President Biden.
Biden has reversed the successful policies that the Trump administration deployed for security at the southern border. And in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden refused to fully implement CDC orders, packing border patrol jails, and flying illegal immigrants around the country on the taxpayer’s dime.
Biden illegally reversed Trump programs that keep illegal crossers in Mexico to claim asylum and was forced by the Supreme Court to reinstate this successful program.
The consequences of Biden’s open-border, open-crime agenda are drastic for vulnerable children. Nearly 130,000 migrant children entered the U.S. government’s shelter system in FY 2022, an all-time high.
To make matters worse, over 350 individuals on the terrorist watchlist have been apprehended attempting to illegally cross our border between ports of entry since the beginning of FY2021. That’s an over 2,000 percent increase compared to all of FY2017- 2020 and includes individuals from more than 160 countries, including State Sponsors of Terrorism. This number has risen every year of the Biden Presidency, from 15 in fiscal year 2021 to 169 last year. Border Patrol has already encountered 80 illegal border crossers on our terrorist watchlist this fiscal year between ports of entry, leaving us poised to match the FY2023 record of 169 encounters. That should make all of us wonder how many were not apprehended and are already embedded in American cities, waiting to strike the homeland. The Biden Administration is putting the safety of American citizens at risk with its refusal to enforce common sense border policies.

Bringing Integrity to the American Immigration System

The United States is an exceptional country. We are the only nation to legally welcome over a million new people to our shores on a yearly basis. The convergence of these freedom-loving people over the past hundreds of years has created the most prosperous nation on earth.
However, Biden fails to uphold his oath of office when he allows more people to illegally invade our borders than he legally welcomes to the United States. Weak immigration enforcement threatens the health and security of our communities and risks thousands more drug overdoses by worsening the disaster at the Southern Border.

Securing the Border: What Does it Take?

Over 85 percent of all illegal border crossers were turned back to Mexico. The Trump Administration built over 458 miles of border wall that Biden instantly stopped construction on when he took office.
Building the wall helped keep crime, drugs, cartels, and illegal immigrants from invading our country. Equally important, the Trump Administration implemented targeted and successful policies that deterred people from getting to our border in the first place.
When people think that they can illegally enter and stay in the United States without consequence, they will come. Far too many foreign citizens correctly believe that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will let them in—and it’s caused a crisis at our border.
Recent estimates say up to 17 million illegal immigrants live in the United States—more than the entire population of New York state.
The Trump Administration stemmed the flow of illegal immigrants arriving at the border through two important policies. First, through the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), known as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, the United States made illegal border crossers wait in Mexico before they were entitled to an immigration hearing. Most hearings take years to adjudicate, previously leaving illegal immigrants free to live in the United States.
The other tool, known as Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs), made would-be migrants traversing through Central America to first claim asylum in a safe neighboring country and allowed the United States to send asylum claimants at the overwhelmed Southern Border to safe third country for processing.

How “Remain in Mexico” Stops Illegal Immigration

When Border Patrol catches an illegal crosser, they don’t simply make them turn around. They catch them, process them, give them a court date, and release them—not back to Mexico—but in the United States.
The United States also offers admission and refugee protections to illegal land-border crossers who state a credible fear of political persecution. Our judicial system sets a later date for their asylum proceeding while they remain in the United States.
As of early 2024, there was a record backlog of three million cases in U.S. immigration courts. That means the average wait for an asylum hearing is over four years! The U.S. federal government effectively gives a free pass into the United States to anyone that says they have a “credible fear” of being in their own country.
Illegal border crossers with fake asylum claims knew that they would be stuck in Mexico, deterring them from trying to cross in the first place. The U.S. could process legitimate asylum claims faster for those most in need.
After the Supreme Court forced the reinstatement of MPP, Biden’s officials have only sent a few hundred illegal border crossers back to Mexico, having almost zero effect in stopping millions of illegal immigrants from arriving in the first place.

Asylum Cooperative Agreements Stem Illegal Immigration

During 2019, 71 percent of all illegal border crossers were from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Families made up a majority of crossers, which created a humanitarian crisis and further strained U.S. resources at the border. To stop this, the Trump Administration negotiated with the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to reach ACAs.
These agreements instantly solved three problems:
- Families under real persecution in Central America can go to neighboring countries to claim asylum and enjoy protection, rather than travel all the way to the United States.
- It dissuades would-be migrants from paying top-dollar to deadly drug cartels that guide them on a perilous journey through Mexico to the U.S. Southern Border.
- Those seeking to falsely claim asylum know they will be denied and not granted access to the United States.
Biden illegally canceled the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with our partner nations 16 days after he became president with zero replacement plan. Now, human smugglers are richer than ever before. These smugglers take advantage of the most vulnerable and impoverished Central Americans attempting to get the U.S. border, under the premise that the United States will let them in. The consequences for the people making the journey are disastrous.
The same cartels responsible for the 100,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. through their drug smuggling are enriched by these policies. Cartels and smugglers earned over $1.7 billion every year from human smuggling of Guatemalan, Honduran, and Salvadoran migrants to the United States. Between 60-80 percent of women, including children, are raped on the journey. Over 30 percent of kids experience sexual violence.
President Biden can help stop the border crisis by re-instituting the competent and humane policies that were handed to him. Biden should immediately and permanently re- implement conservative policies that were working to keep the border safe and secure.

Policy Memorandums

Crisis at the Southern Border

Joe Biden has created a disastrous border crisis that threatens Americans’ security, and it keeps getting worse. There is more fentanyl and deadly drugs passing through our border and killing Americans than ever before. Sadly, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug and opioid overdoses in both 2021 and 2022 – that is a direct consequence of Biden’s failure to enforce the law and secure our border.

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