Biden doesn’t intend to defend America’s borders

OPINION:

In Mexico City last week, the president of the United States met with the president of Mexico and the prime minister of Canada for what was dubbed the “Three Amigos Summit.”

The notion that President Biden, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Justin Trudeau resemble Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short — stars of the 1986 comedy film “Three Amigos” — seems far-fetched. Do these politicians make you laugh?

On second thought …

But seriously, folks, their Declaration of North America (DNA) listed “six pillars.” Topping the list (of course): “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Second (of course): “climate change and the environment.” Third was “competitiveness,” fifth: “health,” sixth: “regional security.” The only pillar about which there was any news — loosely defined — was the fourth: “migration and development.”

That’s not to say that Mr. Biden and friends presented serious policies aimed at stopping millions of unvetted foreigners from streaming into the U.S. On the contrary, the DNA boasts that the three countries “have collectively welcomed record numbers of migrants and refugees from the Western Hemisphere under new and expanded labor and humanitarian programs.” And it calls for “expanding and promoting regular pathways for migration and protection.”

By the way, why do you think they say “migration” rather than “immigration”? Do they expect the caravans to head back south in the dry season?

Before any readers get triggered, I should mention that I consider it essential that Americans welcome immigrants. But I also consider it essential that immigrants enter the U.S. legally, that the U.S. has secure borders, and that American citizens have a say in how many immigrants they admit and— whom they admit.

“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.” Then-Sen. Barack Obama said that in 2005. He’s said nothing similar lately.

Since Mr. Biden migrated to the White House, you’ve seen (if you’ve been watching Fox News; other television outlets, not so much) more than 5.5 million men, women and children — a population about the size of Finland’s — illegally and chaotically come into the country. Many are smuggled in by “coyotes” working for criminal cartels, which explains how more than 20,000 pounds of fentanyl — the leading cause of death for Americans 18-45 — also passed into the U.S. last year.

Mr. Biden has refused to enforce applicable laws, and he’s issued dozens of executive orders removing procedures and tools that had been available to the Border Patrol and other government agencies.

Just after taking office in 2021, he asserted that the surge of illegal aliens was merely a “seasonal increase” (a migration?). His secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has repeatedly insisted — despite what your lying eyes tell you — that “the border is closed.”

Why does Mr. Biden want open borders? One likely reason: Securing the border was a high priority of former President Donald Trump, and Mr. Biden fancies himself the anti-Trump.

A second plausible reason: Globalists, an influential cohort within Mr. Biden’s base, believe “migrants” have an inalienable right to settle in the United States. “We’re trying to make it easier for people to get here,” Mr. Biden acknowledged at the summit.

In traditional democratic societies, citizens choose their leaders. Globalists prefer that leaders choose their citizens.

And the “noncitizen suffrage” movement has been making progress. More than a dozen municipalities in the U.S. have granted noncitizens the right to vote in some or all local elections.

Such evidence notwithstanding, The New York Times told its readers that, at the North American leaders’ summit, Mr. Biden announced a “major crackdown on illegal border crossings.” But did he?

His new policy — previewed in a White House speech a week earlier — will deny migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the countries from which most of these people have been coming, the chance to apply for asylum if they cross into the U.S. illegally. They are to be returned to Mexico, and Mr. Lopez Obrador has agreed to accept up to 30,000 each month.

But in what the Times called a “concession designed to offset the humanitarian impact of the new restrictions,” Mr. Biden added that as many as 30,000 people per month from those countries would be permitted to migrate legally. They’d just need to apply from their home countries following a formal process.

You’re unlikely to find, in most major media, any mention of the national security impact posed by porous borders. But as the National Review Institute’s Andrew C. McCarthy pointed out: “A nation is a nation only if it has internationally recognized territory over which it exercises dominion and control. … One of Biden’s jobs, which he swore an oath to perform faithfully and in a manner consistent with the Constitution, is to defend the border. And he is violating that oath, exploiting the power of the presidency on behalf of non-Americans to strip the United States of its sovereignty.”

He’s also putting Americans in imminent danger. Iran’s rulers openly threaten to kill former Trump administration officials, Iranian dissidents in exile and think-tank scholars who speak out against the regime (including at the shop where I hang my hat). How hard do you think it is to get Hezbollah terrorists into the U.S.?

If Mr. Biden were seriously interested in border security, he’d spend more money on physical barriers, Border Patrol agents and detention centers. Instead, he plans to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to hire more IRS agents, relieve woke college graduates of their student-loan obligations, and “address” climate change — a verb that does not imply having a positive impact on the climate.

I don’t think even Steve Martin could make that funny.

• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.