Laredo, Texas, is at the epicenter of the border crisis — a crisis the town’s Democratic mayor believes was unnecessary and avoidable.
Mayor Pete Saenz watched as his small border community became overwhelmed in the last few months as most city services have been forced to focus on giving humanitarian aid, medical assistance, and transportation to tens of thousands of asylum seekers. Saenz says he isn’t getting much help from Washington. He told the Washington Free Beacon, “We need to truly secure the border. He added, “It was working under Trump, call it whatever you want to call it, but it was working.”
As a Democrat, what Saenz may not realize is that whether the policy was working or not is immaterial. What matters is that the policy was initiated by Donald Trump and had to be ended for that reason.
It may be de rigueur in modern political America for a president entering the White House to alter policies of his predecessor for no other reason than the policies aren’t his, but Joe Biden is attacking the policies of Donald Trump on immigration and border security with particular relish, reflecting the bloodlust of his radical left supporters against any and all things Trump.
“We’re spending billions of dollars on alternative things but immigration isn’t given priority. Border Patrol isn’t being funded to the extent that Border Patrol has to be funded,” Saenz said. “Their workload has increased to three times or four, and yet they’re not funded. So, that kind of leads me to think the Democrats have the same mentality [toward the Border Patrol] as defunding law enforcement generally.”
Pretty tough words for a Democrat. But it’s not just law enforcement that the Biden people want to defund. The attack on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is an attack on the concepts of citizenship and the law.
The attack on the law goes to the top of the Department of Homeland Security as Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has issued new guidelines that stipulate there is little difference between being a citizen and an illegal alien.
Mayorkas said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers should not attempt to arrest and deport farmworkers, the elderly and others who were vulnerable to deportation under the Trump administration, which allowed agents to arrest anyone in the United States illegally. He also said agents should avoid detaining immigrants who land on their radar because they spoke out against “unscrupulous” landlords or employers, or at public demonstrations. The new rules take effect Nov. 29.
“The overriding question is whether the noncitizen poses a current threat to public safety,” Mayorkas wrote in a memo to immigration and border agency heads Thursday.
“Are we going to spend the time apprehending and removing the farmworker who is breaking his or her back to pick fruit that we all put on our tables?” Mayorkas said in the interview. “Because if we pursue that individual, we will not be spending those same resources on somebody who does, in fact, threaten our safety. And that is what this is about.”
How many thousands of illegal aliens in the last few months were captured at the border and released with only a slip of paper telling them to appear in court years down the road? How do we know all those people are innocent civilians? They weren’t vetted in any way. What special powers are granted to border agents to allow them to look at someone and determine they aren’t a threat?
The fact is, the Biden administration is gambling — gambling with the health and safety of Americans — that the illegals are harmless and wouldn’t harm a flea. Until, of course, they do. Then, it’s a terrible tragedy that no one could have foreseen.
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