by Jarrett Stepman
President Joe Biden’s administration has set another record.
A total of 14,509 illegal aliens were encountered at the southern border Monday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Washington Examiner reported, a record for total daily encounters.
This number surpasses a record that was set just last week at a border that has become pure chaos in recent weeks.
“Migrant encounters at the border just hit the highest single day total ever recorded, & CBP has closed down multiple international railway crossings to redeploy personnel for migrant processing, leading to major disruptions in international commerce,” Fox News border reporter Bill Melugin wrote Tuesday in a post on X.
Here’s what it looks like.
BREAKING: Video from a contact on the ground in Eagle Pass, TX right now shows a mass of thousands of migrants waiting to be processed by Border Patrol after they crossed illegally today. I’ve spent hundreds of days there over the last 2+ years and I’ve never seen it like this. pic.twitter.com/JPNYY7sPxI
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 19, 2023
Many Border Patrol agents reportedly are calling it the “worst day they’ve ever seen.”
The pictures and videos are certainly shocking.
The current scene on the Eagle Pass border. I’ve never seen it like this @NewsNation pic.twitter.com/XPU1vpClYj
— Jorge Ventura Media (@VenturaReport) December 19, 2023
The only response from the Biden administration has been to say that the criticism just isn’t fair.
In response to questions Tuesday about the border, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that she and the president “take offense” to the idea that they aren’t serious about border enforcement.
Karine Jean-Pierre says she is offended when people say Biden isn't taking the border seriously — even as record numbers of illegal immigrants pour across the southern border pic.twitter.com/PNqpTPlfxA
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 19, 2023
It’s the American people who should take offense. The White House should feel nothing but shame over its obvious unwillingness to do what must be done to enforce immigration laws and secure the border. At this point, it seems intentional.
For years, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been saying that the border is “secure,” despite record after record numbers of illegal aliens or illegal crossings being broken and broken again.
We are apparently supposed to just take the Biden administration’s word for it and shut up.
The record set Monday is just the latest reminder of the administration’s complete abandonment of duty.
From the moment Biden arrived in office in January 2021, this has been an unacceptable problem. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said they would fix border security by fixing the root cause of illegal immigration, which they insist stems from economic problems in Central and South America.
How is that working out?
Biden, Harris, and Mayorkas haven’t solved anything, and the problem is getting worse here at home. The only thing they seem eager to do is squabble with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, about his attempts to seal the border while attacking the previous administration.
On the campaign trail, Biden routinely slammed then-President Donald Trump for his immigration policies, which led to record lows of illegal border crossings. Biden is still doing so, despite the obvious signs that his administration’s policies have failed the American people.
The failure is so acute that some Democrat governors and mayors increasingly grouse about the mess they’re being left with.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson laughably blamed the Texas governor for the number of illegal immigrants showing up in his city.
The Democrat mayor of Chicago ran on a platform promising he'd make the city a home for the illegal criminals streaming across our border.
Brandon Johnson suddenly sounds different now that his city is going bankrupt and he's losing black voters. pic.twitter.com/jLOV6VWtLv
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) December 19, 2023
“The issue is not just how we respond in the city of Chicago, it’s the fact that we have a governor … that is placing families on buses … and then they come to the city of Chicago, where we have homelessness, we have mental health things that have been shut down, you have people seeking employment,” Johnson said.
What Johnson is saying is that blue state policies should be exclusively red state problems.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, another Democrat, at least acknowledged where this problem is coming from, even if he just wants voters to get off his back. He said at a briefing for reporters that New Yorkers need to go to “our center of government and raise our voices.”
Adams said the problem with the crisis of illegal immigration that’s hitting the streets of his city doesn’t stem from New York but from “Washington, D.C.”
City Hall NYC
During a briefing, the NYC Mayor Eric Adams calls on New Yorkers to raise their voices at Washington DC to tell DC to help out with the migrant crisis. The mayor also states that people came up to him telling him they didn't know he couldn't stop migrants from… pic.twitter.com/AcuXS5RKAl— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) December 19, 2023
The mayor is right that New York doesn’t have the authority to deport illegal immigrants or the ability to solve this crisis, but the Big Apple also doesn’t deserve much sympathy. New York declared itself a “sanctuary city” long ago, and now it’s suffering the additional, well-deserved consequences.
Now that city schools and services are being overrun, New York’s Democrat mayor is being put in an uncomfortable position by angry constituents. And he should be.
Illegal immigrants from all over the world know that if they come to the United States, they may get detained by authorities but they also have an excellent chance to remain in this country regardless.
The Biden administration has made sure of that. U.S. Customs and Border Protection not only has been overwhelmed by the impossible task it has been given, its agents also have been maligned by the administration just for doing their jobs.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that any kind of crisis on the border will provoke Biden and company into adopting policies that actually slow down illegal immigration. They will continue insisting that their hands are tied unless Congress passes an amnesty bill and that this is not their fault.
We don’t have border enforcement anymore since Biden came in, not really. We have a border mob created by a dereliction of executive duty.
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Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of the book “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.”
Photo “Illegal Immigrants” by John R. Modlin.
While it is easy to blame Joe Biden let’s be fair. His administration including political appointees owns a piece of the blame. Lost in the discussion is the democrat party who are as responsible as Biden. To a lesser degree, main-stream-media gives only superficial coverage and refuses to the democrats responsible. Media spent so much time, so much ink, on the detention cages used early in President Trump’s term. When it was discovered, the cages were constructed, operational and filled during Obama’s presidency the press lost all interest.