The Utter Insanity of
Joe Biden’s Open Border

By: Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
January 3, 2024

There have been more than 8 million illegal entries into the United States since Joe Biden was elected president. He appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security, whose apparent prime directive was to destroy the southern border.

That task is precisely what Mayorkas has now accomplished. The result is that the border is neither “porous” nor “problematic,” but nonexistent, kaput, vanished—and by design.

In one of the most surreal experiences in the history of the United States, each night Americans see video clips of thousands of foreign nationals crossing the border en masse with complete impunity—as if the entire corpus of federal immigration law has been dynamited.

But by whom? And why?

As millions of citizens watch this travesty, they hear only from Mayorkas, Biden, and his Pravda megaphone, Karin Jean-Pierre, that the border is “secure”—a Baghdad Bob narrative that they know that we know is an utter lie.

Surely, this deliberate effort to destroy an entire border, to invite in millions of unchecked illegal aliens, and to violate oaths to execute faithfully the laws of the land are impeachable offenses for both Biden and Mayorkas. If not, what are?

Stranger still, Americans have no real idea why these revolutionaries are destroying our border.

Are they nineteenth-century anarchists who want to undermine the United States itself? Are they cynical “Demography is Destiny” and “The New Democratic Majority” leftists who need new dependent Democrat constituents to find votes for agendas that most Americans reject?

Do they want to create billions of dollars in new entitlements and subsidies to grow government, hike taxes, and make the upper-middle-class pay, as Biden puts it, “their fair share?”

Whatever the cause of this nihilism, there are at least 10 ways their open border is insidiously destroying the United States.

Legal immigration
Does legal immigration still exist? Are we still requiring those who would enter the U.S. legally to provide the required documents, undergo audits, and complete background checks?

Is not the current policy de facto punishing those who follow the law by tying them up in bureaucratic red tape for years as we reward unlawful behavior by greenlighting amnesties for lawbreakers?

Is the Biden administration’s policy designed to deflect those from South Korea with MDs, or from Mumbai with PhDs, or from Taiwan with MBAs, by putting their applications on a slow, second-track pathway? Is DEI at work in the sense that America does not want here the accomplished who earned degrees and possess vital skills as if they are thereby condemned as “privileged?”

Does Biden realize that his legacy of inviting in “surging” millions, in contradiction of the law, will soon erode all support for immigration, legal or otherwise?

Lawless US
Does the utter lawlessness at the border contribute to the general coarseness and current mockery of the rule of law in general—an epidemic that plagues our cities with homelessness, smash-and-grabs, car-jackings, and random assaults?

Is the rationale that if you can walk freely past border security guards, who cares whether you ignore a summons, throw away a traffic ticket, or skip reporting some income?

Dependency
If the first thing a foreign national does is to violate the law by crossing the border without permission, the second is to reside illegally in the US, and the third is to apply for some sort of food, housing, medical, legal, or educational subsidy, then is that the type of new resident we desire?

Apparently, what the United States does not want is the immigration model of old, one in which immigrants applied legally, came here lawfully through authorized ports of entry, and were self-supporting upon arrival.

In other words, it may be hard to shake from Biden’s likely 10 million illegal aliens their initial assumption that,
1) in America, the laws do not apply to them, and,
2) their new naïve or guilt-ridden hosts, not themselves, are responsible for their welfare.

Cui Bono?
We suspect the Left and employers welcome illegal immigrants; the more en masse and without audit, the better.

But how do millions simply leave their homes, cross international borders, and get waved on to El Norte? What is the mentality of Mexico that facilitates this mass exodus northward from its neighbors and from itself?

Is Mexico a frenemy?
Do we even care that some $60 billion leaves the U.S. as remittances into Mexico, mostly by illegal residents here who are on state and local subsidies to free up their billions of dollars to support people inside Mexico that Mexico City has no intention of helping?

Is such a gargantuan cash outflow, then, Mexican socialist President Obrador’s cynical idea of payback for supposed historical Yanqui sins? Does he think a new, huge expatriate community will continue to lobby for Mexico to do what it pleases on our side of the border? Does illegal immigration warp U.S. foreign policy itself?

Cartels
Does anyone worry that among the millions moving northward are hundreds of Mexican cartel functionaries loaded with tens of thousands of pounds of dangerous drugs, fentanyl most prominently?

Do we even care that the U.S. is enriching the cartels through its tolerance of drug importation and alien smuggling? With open borders, are we not abetting the annual 100,000 or so deaths of Americans through overdoses, often by the counterfeiting of fentanyl to resemble less toxic illicit drugs and prescription tranquilizers, sedatives, and painkillers?

Is there any other enemy in the world—Russia, China, or Iran—that has helped kill more Americans than the cartels, along with the culpable Mexican government that deflects cartel criminality and violence northward?

Trashing Citizens
Illegal immigration is insidiously diminishing citizenship by equating illegal aliens with, if not making them preferable to, American citizens. Is there anything an illegal alien cannot do in Biden’s America—work in a campaign, vote in some elections, serve in the military, receive government subsidies? Crisscross international borders without a passport?

To put it another way, why did we expel 8,400 US military personnel for the “crime” of passing on the required but experimental mRNA vaccinations (most of the discharged had natural immunity from prior COVID infections), while we let in millions of foreigners without worrying whether any have been vaccinated for anything, much less have had COVID tests?

Why are we forcing every American to recalibrate, at great expense, their identification to a “Real ID” to ensure security within our airline industry while putting tens of thousands of illegal aliens, without any documents, on flights throughout the country?

Does the Biden administration policy translate into something like, ‘We know and therefore don’t trust Americans, so we must apply airline boarding standards to them that we certainly do not need with more reliable and trustworthy illegal and unaudited aliens?’

Why, in bankrupt cities like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, where social services are overwhelmed with thousands of needy citizens, are we imploding such facilities with influxes of illegal aliens?

Do we prefer the latter to the former? Does the Biden administration’s message again read something like, ‘We care more about the health status of those south of the border than our own citizen poor in our own inner cities, so please surge on up?’

Who Pays?
At $34 trillion in debt, and with budget deficits normalizing at nearly $2 trillion a year, where does America find the hundreds of billions, if not eventually trillions of dollars, to welcome in millions of the unaudited—all in need of immediate no-questions-asked entitlements, and for some years on end?

Is California the model, where currently an estimated half of all illegal aliens reside and 27 percent of the resident population was not born in the U.S.?

California, while experiencing hundreds of thousands of new illegal entries and a $70 billion annual budget deficit, just extended free health care services to non-citizens who entered unlawfully. More than half of the state’s births are already paid for through Med-Cal. One-third of Americans living on assistance live in California. A fifth of the population struggles below the poverty line while the state runs up a $70 billion annual deficit with the nation’s highest income taxes and gas taxes and among the highest sales taxes.

No wonder over a quarter-million upper-middle-class taxpayers flee the state each year, unable to endure a 13.3% non-deductible, top state income tax rate on top of the 37% of their income that goes to the IRS.

No wonder there is a catastrophic current 25% drop in California income tax revenues when a single 1% of households pays 50% of all state income taxes—and is stampeding out of state. Is Governor Newsom federalizing California, or spreading the idea that far too privileged Americans owe the poor of the world massive subsidies as a reward for breaking their laws in coming here?

Ending Deterrence?
There are many reasons why foreign thugs are testing the United States—Putin in Ukraine, the Chinese with a spy balloon over our native soil, Hamas by murdering Israelis, and Iran’s satellites by rocketing our military installations and ships abroad.

No doubt our woke, manpower-short military that fled from Kabul, leaving a multibillion-dollar trove of weapons, has lost the ability to deter opportunistic belligerents.

The Biden administration’s obsequious courting of Iran, contextualizing Chinese aggression, and announcing our reaction to a Russian invasion of Ukraine would hinge on whether it was “minor” have all eroded deterrence. Now, in circular fashion, President Obrador no longer fears any reaction to millions from his country swarming into the United States, as he had in the past when Trump pressured him to control his side of the border. That he helped to blow up the border with impunity also, in turn, reminds aggressors abroad that a nation too afraid to protect its own sovereignty can hardly defend that of its allies.

The DEI Narrative
We, the hosts, no longer believe in the melting pot. Instead, cultural Marxists divide America into the automatically victimized, by nature of their nonwhite status, versus the victimizers defined by whatever “white” is conveniently classified at the moment.

Class, history, and individual merit matter not so much in this 24/7 effort to reduce everyone to either oppressed or oppressor.

Under this racist binary, 99 percent of illegal aliens—who will be instantly categorized as the so-called nonwhite—will enter the U.S. with innate claims against the majority. Thus, they will become instantly eligible for everything from affirmative action preferences in hiring and admissions (the Supreme Court ruling will be a minor inconvenience for the Left, in the manner of the easily ignored California Prop 209) to race-based targeted equity programs and subsidies.

And the message we send to the illegal immigrant? Certainly not unity, integration, and assimilation. Instead, we emphasize ethnic, racial, religious, and linguistic differences and fuel such divides. Such separatism pays cultural, social, and economic dividends in such a way that assimilation and integration earn rebuke if not ridicule.

Cruel Irony?
The woke Left defines America as incurably racist. So how could the nonwhite in the millions possibly flee their home countries, where they compose a majority of the population, only to seek out the one country in the world where they are told toxic “white privilege” is unsurpassed?

Did the millions swarming the Rio Grande not listen to the horror stories of Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib? Do they not read the warnings of systemic this and that from Professor Kendi? Have they been briefed on endemic something by Ta-Nehisi Coates? Are they unaware of the messaging from BLM and Antifa? Were they not warned by President Obrador of the Inferno waiting ahead to the north?

None of the millions apparently wished to be diverted to a quite diverse India, or China, a land of mandated equity, or the inclusionary lands of the homogenously Islamic Middle East.

If the amorality of illegal immigration were not so deleterious to Americans, its absurdity would be laughable.

Dennis

Your paragraph doesn't seem to make sense, is counterproductive.

Since Americans generally agree that more enforcement is necessary to prevent illegal entry and to deport all unauthorized individuals, to paint all with a very wide brush as Hanson, Miller and you do is counter productive.

Yes Americans do want more enforcement and in this administration there is iNO enforcement to speak of when considering the great numbers of illegal aliens who have crossed our border. Yes the exact number will never be known but I believe close estimates by border patrol officers is pretty close at 7-8 Million, a wide discrepancy even at that isn't it, 7-8 Million. You seem to put me, Hanson and Miller in the same basket but is that not the very same basket you tell us Americans want? What you have described is exactly what I want, more enforcement and illegal aliens deported. So why lump me in with Hanson and Miller; why lump them in with me. We do want the same thing as other Americans. So then why is POS Biden screwing over Americans from his first day in office?

Of course you will need to take that up with lil denny because he tell us every illegal alien found in America from now until the end of time, when apprehended, can legally yell out, I seek asylum, and all is well no matter how long that illegal alien has been in America. Please tell us what an illegal alien, here for 10 years, is seeking asylum from, threats, no job, gang violence? Almost anyone in the black neighborhoods of Detroit and Chicago can make the same claim can't they? Dennis

The greatest problem, it seems, is not with classifying people as Aliens, Immigrants, or Illegals, but the “Release into America” Asylum program.
~~~~~~~~~~

To be eligible for asylum, you must be:
1. Inside the United States.
2. Able to demonstrate that you were persecuted or have a fear of persecution in your home country due to a fear of persecution based on your: a. Race, b. Religion, c. Nationality, d. Social group, e. Political opinion.

SOURCE: https://www.usa.gov › asylum
~~~~~~~~~~~


There is no NEED to apply for Refugee Status (which must be done outside of the U.S.),
Likewise no NEED to apply for Immigrant Status (with green card status and a path to citizenship),
Certainly no NEED to be an “illegal” foreign national/alien (with

JUST CLAIM ASYLUM — BYPASS the system and disappear into the country . . . .

Persons would likely be “safe” for YEARS! (A risky decision, but possible. Always worried about deportation).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be eligible for asylum, you must be:
1. Inside the United States.
2. Able to demonstrate that you were persecuted or have a fear of persecution in your home country due to your: a. Race, b. Religion, c. Nationality, d. Social group, e. Political opinion.

SOURCE: https://www.usa.gov › asylum
~~~~~~~~~~~

Under current policy, ANYONE may cross ANY border, AT ANY POINT. Then if stopped, questioned or apprehended, simply claim Asylum.
They are then photographed, fingerprinted, processed and released INTO THE COUNTRY and appointed a “hearing date” (which may be up to years in the future).

Although many of these persons have, and do, comply with their hearings appearance, there is no evidence of a large enforcement effort to remove those who disappear into sanctuary cities and neighborhoods where they may reside permanently without penalty; or much fear of removal.
A ‘work permit’ may be applied for after six months, and social services by various organizations and religious groups are available.
~~~~~~~~~~~

It appears there are three processes (hoops to jump?) that apply AFTER requesting asylum:

1. The Affirmative process — To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status. You must apply for asylum within 1 year of the date of your last arrival in the United States.

2. Asylum Merits Interview After a Positive Credible Fear Determination — If you are placed in expedited removal proceedings and indicate an intention to apply for asylum, express a fear of persecution or torture, or express a fear of return to your country, you will be referred to USCIS for a credible fear screening.
A USCIS asylum officer will conduct a credible fear screening interview to determine whether you have a credible fear of persecution or torture.

3. Defensive application for asylum — Occurs when you request asylum as a defense against removal from the United States. For asylum processing to be defensive, you must be in removal proceedings in immigration court with the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
Individuals are generally placed into defensive asylum processing in one of two ways:

A. They are referred to an immigration judge by USCIS after they have been determined to be ineligible for asylum at the end of the affirmative asylum process, or

B. They are placed in removal proceedings because they:
Were apprehended in the United States or at a U.S. port of entry without proper legal documents or in violation of their immigration status; or

C. They were apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) trying to enter the United States without proper documentation, were placed in the expedited removal process, and were found to have a credible fear of persecution or torture by an asylum officer.
SOURCE: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/obtaining-asylum-in-the-united-states#:
~~~~~~~~~~~

And counselors are available to aid in the process.
New regulation requires the presence of a translator fluent in the language of the interviewee — provided at their own cost.

The GOP will see the same backlash from their extreme take on immigration as they've seen in their extreme stance on abortion.

The numbers thrown about for number of "illegals" include many unauthorized and legal, but undocumented. Many of that number are also awaiting legal determination. Each category has to be dealt with as their circumstances warrant. No one is able to accurately state the number of "illegal" which I define as those who did not enter the USA in a prescribed manner and were not apprehended to be deported in accordance with immigration laws.

Since Americans generally agree that more enforcement is necessary to prevent illegal entry and to deport all unauthorized individuals, to paint all with a very wide brush as Hanson, Miller and you do is counter productive.

Here's one of the more reasoned approaches to the crisis. The surge in numbers is the cause -- getting to the root of that and developing counter measures is key. Otherwise, as Rep. Lawlor explains--we stay in the 1980's laws/solutions for a 2024 problem.

https://youtu.be/9hEEtLbZ6PE?si=sHFvOLgXKE1HePO4

Now, you are off on a tangent.

You put yourself in the same viewpoint as Hanson by your posting his opinion.

Denny is absolutely correct - laws allow for immigrants to ask for asylum upon apprehension at which point they are afforded the judicial process to play out. The civil penalties paragraph you claim proves illegal status only speaks to consequence of actions; they do not speak to the process nor prove the actions are against statutes which would require detention and statutory fees and even deportation. A person assessed with civil penalties as you described does not determine "legal" status.

The Biden administration is working to make the asylum determination authority to be at the point of apprehension rather than be added to the backlog of asylum cases.