Oct
17
Democrat About-Face re Illegal Immigration
Let me begin by giving you three quotes, and you try to guess who said them. Ready?
1) “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”
2) “Let me tell you something, folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons — hear me, tons — of everything from byproducts from methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin, and it’s all coming up through corrupt Mexico.”
3) “Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple…. People who enter the United States without permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the U.S. legally.”
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The answers are then-senators Barack Obama (2005), Joe Biden (2006), and Chuck Schumer (2009), respectively. Surprised?
In 2006, these three were among the 80 members of the U.S. Senate who bipartisanly passed the Secure Fence Act (SFA). This legislation directed the Dept. of Homeland Security to take operational control over U.S. land and maritime borders. As per Mark Morgan, former Acting Commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
“It defined operational control as the prevention of all unlawful entries into the U.S., including terrorists, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband. And it specifically set the goal of ‘provid[ing] at least two layers of reinforced fencing, installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors.’ It added thousands of Border Patrol personnel, mandated the acquisition of new technologies, and resulted in the construction of more than 650 miles of physical barrier along the southern border of the U.S. between 2006 and 2011.”
Sounds pretty good (and reasonable) to me. But, now fifteen years later, this act is largely ignored or undermined, with the Biden administration “methodically un[doing] every meaningful border security policy that it inherited.” The three quoted above — along with Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, and other Democrat leaders — have done one-eighties, ignoring the dangers and promoting the opposite sentiments. If you disagree, you will likely be called heartless, hateful, immoral, xenophobic, even racist.
But, why the turnaround? Why now?
It’s all about timing in the halls of power and regarding societal trends. The easiest answer is that the Democrats saw an opportunity to gain more votes. Let in hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, give them lots of free stuff, and they will gratefully vote for the party that gave that all to them. All the better, some of them might even pay taxes. It all translates into more power and money for the Democrat leaders, ethics and Constitutional responsibilities (not to mention economic realities) be damned.
I believe this to be true, but it is only part of the larger picture. Taking it a step further, the Leftist elites will likely use the current “surge” of illegal immigrants to move their Leftist agenda forward. “Chaos” at the borders, economic stresses, divisiveness, etc., will be exploited in efforts to manipulate and misinform the populace and to transform the nation’s economic and political makeup. (Much as they are using “catastrophic climate change” and the COVID-19 pandemic to do so.)
I’m at risk of going off on a tangent or two, so I’ll stop now. But, we can’t stop fighting for the heart and soul of Western democracy and constitutional republicanism. And that includes maintaining sovereign borders and the rule of law.
(H/T Mark Morgan and Hillsdale College)
* Portions of this post have been informed or “Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”
