Fox News’s Peter Doocy deserves immense credit for his work at the daily press conferences. Because Fox is viewed as opposition media, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has to call on him or risk looking scared. When she does, Doocy asks questions that are top of mind for many Americans that the administration does not want to answer.
On Tuesday, Doocy asked a series of questions about the border. Jean-Pierre is never happy when Doocy does this because he brings statistics, has a dedicated reporter on the border in Bill Melugin, and, quite frankly, because there are no good answers. However, on Tuesday, Jean-Pierre spouted such nonsense that it was astonishing.
First, Doocy asked if anyone in the administration thought the border was secure. Jean-Pierre responded, “What I can tell you is, this is a president has been working since day one to work on border security to make immigration a priority.” Yes, that is verbatim. She continued, “That’s why he put forth a comprehensive immigration reform plan legislation.”
“And, here’s the thing. As the president is coming forward and trying to come up with solutions, the difference here is that you have Republicans, as you know, who are doing political stunts,” Jean-Pierre whined. Apparently, the Biden administration believes the citizens of Texas and Arizona should foot the entire bill for their intentionally lax border policies.
The governors of those states decided that blue states like New York and Illinois should help and shipped illegal immigrants interested in relocating to their preferred destination. Wonder what Jean-Pierre will have to say about Colorado’s Democrat Gov. Jared Polis joining in the strategy of spreading the pain and transporting migrants along with Texas and Arizona.
Related: Hold on to Your Huddled Masses: New York City Doesn’t Want Any More Illegal Immigrants
Objection to the open border policies is a bipartisan majority position. In July, over half of respondents in an NPR/Ipsos poll thought the word “invasion” accurately captured the current situation. For example, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) joined with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to ask for a Border Czar. During the midterms, he criticized the administration’s lack of action, and Cuellar defeated an open-borders challenger in the primary.
Biden’s legislation failed because it continued the status quo with a dash of amnesty. Jean-Pierre went on to say that Biden is willing to work across the aisle to solve issues that matter to Americans, like immigration. Odd, since he is not even listening to members of his own party where open border policies cause problems in a state or district. And neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris, who is allegedly in charge of solving the problem, have visited the border.
Then Jean-Pierre came up with the most absurd reason to stop talking about the subject. “When you think about the smugglers, really putting a plan in place that we deal with the smugglers,” she said. And we have to be very careful here, Peter, on how we talk about this. Because if we talk about it in a way that is misinformation, then it helps the smugglers.” It is enough to make your head hurt.
The organizations that run our southern border are not small bands of “smugglers” that are easily influenced by anything said in the American media. They are sophisticated international crime organizations that are often better armed than Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and watch what is happening, not what is said. Over a year ago, retired Texas Department of Public Safety Captain Jaeson Jones warned that the cartels are a parallel government along the border.
And as long as the status quo remains, these criminal organizations will be enriched. As Jones explained, you don’t cross without paying them. He added that the cartels were being hit with so much unsolicited traffic that they had to come up with a system of wristbands to identify who had paid. They also retain contact information for the family to extort illegal immigrants to commit unlawful acts on behalf of the cartel once in the U.S.
To illustrate, Jones explained a numbering system that indicated whether the illegal crosser was paid in full. If not, “They [the cartel member] pick up the phone, they call the family, they validate the family and how they’re linked. Then they get their address and their phone number. Now here’s why that’s important because we’re going into a realm of debt bondage,” he said.
Jones continued, “I’ll give you a great example. Cartel del Noreste and the Gulf Cartel are charging for migrants who come from Honduras, and Guatemala, and Venezuela $3,000 to cross. Now that’s just at the river. A lot of them can’t pay that, that’s a lot of money. So they’ll pay a thousand up front. Now they’re indebted. Now they move into the United States. They cross, but they are indebted to a criminal organization in a foreign country while living in the United States.”
That interview was in April 2021. More illegal immigrants from more nations are crossing now, and increased volume means higher prices. The Department of Homeland Security has no idea how many people they have released are indebted, let alone how many got aways there are. The cartels know precisely how open our border is. They don’t need Peter Doocy asking a question or a Republican criticizing Biden’s border policy to figure it out.
And Karine Jean-Pierre needs to find a plausible reason to shut down this discussion. Because if anyone was passing misinformation about the situation at the border Tuesday, it was her.
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