Category: Joe Guzzardi

Citizens Wonder Does Biden Care?

By Joe Guzzardi

When future historians look back at Joe Biden’s presidency, they may identify October 2021 as the point in time when his agenda became clear to all: subvert and destroy sovereign America.

Unmistakable and undeniable signs of Biden’s goal to irreversibly and forever recreate America in the image his puppeteers – former President Barack Obama; current Director of the Domestic Policy Council, Susan Rice, and Interim Obama Foundation president Valerie Jarrett, to name a few of many – mapped out for him.

During his presidential campaign and since his inauguration, Biden has shown few if any signs that he cares about America or Americans. Early on, Biden disregarded the border surges, waved in about 37,000 mostly unvettedAfghan evacuees, with more on the way. Today, with a large illegal alien caravan bowling over Mexican enforcement personnel on their way to Texas, not a soul in the White House, the cabinet or those among Biden’s confidants has indicated concern about the blatant ongoing immigration law violations.

During October, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas busied himself with protecting the illegal immigrants en route and those already in the interior. Mayorkas’ memorandums made immigration law enforcement impossible. On October 12, Mayorkas ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to adopt a hands-off policy regarding illegal aliens at workplaces. Illegal alien employees may have displaced U.S. workers or through their presence hindered American workers from successfully obtaining employment. In his memo, “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law,” the only categories of alien that DHS, ICE or CBP might target are national security or public safety threats.

Mayorkas also created what DHS refers to as “protected areas,” locations where illegally present aliens may gather, but will now be off-limits for ICE and CBP. Protected areas include but aren’t limited to churches, colleges, parades, demonstrations, rallies, social or medical services locations, vocational or trade schools, and children’s playgrounds.

As if the DHS commitment to shielding 11 to 20 million illegal immigrants (or more) isn’t worrisome enough and deeply discouraging to citizens and to legally present aliens and backlogged foreign nationals following the correct immigration procedures, an October 28 Wall Street Journal story proved how over-the-top the Biden administration is vis-à-vis aiding and abetting unlawful presence.

The Journal wrote that the Biden administration’s departments of Justice, Health and Human Services and DHS are in internal discussions to reward illegal immigrants separated during the Trump administration at the rate of $450,000 per individual. On average, each family’s demands total about $3.4 million. The proposed settlement sum is in response to the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit brought on behalf of parents and children who allegedly at the government’s hand suffered potentially irreversible psychological damage when they were separated at the Southwest border. Noteworthy: the multimillion-dollar recompense to aliens who voluntarily, willingly and knowingly broke U.S. laws would exceed the $2 million payouts made to 9/11 victims. And, incomprehensibly, illegal aliens are treated much more generously than military war widows and widowers. The nation’s defenders, killed in the line of duty, receive a comparative pittance, a one-time $100,000 death gratuity.

Biden’s expansive treatment toward and condonement of illegal immigrants invites more of the same. In fiscal year 2021, border apprehensions reached a record high 1.7 million. The open border also has been a financial goldmine for drug and human traffickers, criminal enterprises that the federal government purportedly condemns. But given its refusal to deter the illicit activity, the government actually is endorsing illegal activity. Assuming Biden can complete his term, he has three years left in his presidency to turn his attention to bettering Americans’ lives.

Search as Americans might for clues that the Biden administration may soon elevate U.S. citizens to the same status aliens enjoy within the White House, there’s no indication a policy shift is on the way.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Citizens Wonder Does Biden Care?

Citizens Wonder Does Biden Care?

Immigration Mayorkas-Style

By Joe Guzzardi

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has instituted immigration policies that make the 2021 United States the least secure it’s been in years. In the process of ignoring enforcement, Mayorkas is breaking immigration laws that previous Congresses have passed, and earlier presidents have signed.

In his Oct. 12 policy memo distributed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Mayorkas revealed his latest in a long line of assaults on federal laws that include proactively encouraging mass illegal immigration at the southern border and gutting interior enforcement. Then, in late October, Mayorkas released yet another memo that neuters CBP and ICE. His so-called “guidance” bars immigration officials from entering “protected areas,” a vague category that could mean anywhere. Mayorkas’ reasoning is that ICE, by its mere presence, must not threaten aliens with possible deportation. The reality is, however, that illegal immigrants not suspected of criminal activity have effectively a zero chance of deportation.

A senior DHS official revealed that of the nearly 2 million migrants Homeland Security and Border Patrol encountered in FY2021, a historic high, more than 1.5 million crossed after President Biden’s inauguration and after his dramatic abandonment of the Trump administration’s immigration and border security guidelines. The report’s total excludes about 400,000 “got-aways” that have also joined the general interior population. As for the record-high totals, Mayorkas dismissed them as “nothing new.”

The 2 million illegal immigrants and the aliens who preceded them benefited from excellent timing. In September, Mayorkas announced that DHS would no longer pursue the 11 million illegally present aliens unless they had violent criminal histories or posed national security threats. Mayorkas’ excuse for his criminal neglect is the same impossible-to-confirm one the Obama administration fell back on: “limited resources.”

Mayorkas’ October bulletins, his latest anti-enforcement shoes to drop that represent a de facto amnesty, proclaimed that DHS would end workplace onsite actions which are specifically intended to remove illegal alien employees from their jobs. Then, Mayorkas deceptively added that DHS “has a critical role to ensure our nation’s workplaces comply with our laws,” and that his agency would not “tolerate unscrupulous employers who exploit unauthorized workers….” Under Mayorkas’ direction, DHS has given no indication that the agency is intent on complying with U.S. immigration laws at the workplace or anywhere else.

Unmistakably, Mayorkas is in direct violation of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, signed by President Ronald Reagan after approved by a Congress that included then-Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, which unambiguously forbids and identifies as a criminal act illegal immigrant hiring. Congress, motivated by a two-fold desire to cut off the jobs magnet that lures illegal immigrants north and to protect American workers, overwhelmingly passed IRCA.

With a mere memo, Mayorkas wiped out IRCA, and took another big step forward toward facilitating the displacement of American workers. Hiring illegal immigrants is a crime, but under Mayorkas, employers get off scot-free. Employers who hire unlawfully present workers will escape punishment unless they have engaged in “abusive and exploitative labor practices.” The penalty under U.S. law for employing an individual not authorized to legally work in the U.S. ranges up to $16,000 per alien, and up to ten years in prison.

With the 20,000-personnel-strong ICE mostly gutted, and its 400 worldwide offices limited in their operational scope, Mayorkas has put Americans’ safety in jeopardy. During 2020, on an average day, ICE seized 4,000 pounds of narcotics, managed 3.3 million immigration cases, issued 335 detainers, arrested 87 criminals, made 284 administrative arrests, seized $4.93 million in illicit currency and assets, conducted 509 removals and deported 12 gang members.

With violent crime spiking in 2021, police officers leaving their jobs and now ICE all but dismantled, the Biden-Mayorkas tandem has put law-abiding citizens more in harm’s way than at any time in the past, and for no apparent reason other than to pursue their dangerous political agenda.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Immigration Mayorkas-Style

Immigration Mayorkas-Style

Overkill Predicted For Baseball

By Joe Guzzardi

Major League Baseball’s odyssey toward the World Series began with two wild card games; the Boston Red Sox versus the New York Yankees, and the Los Angeles Dodgers against the St. Louis Cardinals. Luckily for MLB, the two games featured four of baseball’s historic and most revered teams. Television rating were high, but the games were a slog, especially for East Coast fans. The American League contest was a tedious 3:13 hours, and the National League’s game was played at a quicksand-like 4:15 hour pace. The Dodgers-Cardinals face off was a tight 3-1, but most EDT views missed the exciting Chris Taylor L.A. bottom-of the ninth-home run that sealed the Dodgers’ victory.

For dinosaur fans that yearn for fewer and speedier playoff games, the forecast is grim. In 2022, the fondest wish of MLB owners will come true when a new collective bargaining agreement will expand the wild card from its current one-game, sudden death format to the best-of-three. More than half of baseball’s 30 teams will be post-season eligible, and inevitably MLB will expand to 32, thereby further diluting the talent pool that fans pay a king’s ransom to watch. MLB will surpass NCAA football and basketball and the NBA as the sports that endlessly grind on with impossibly long, overlapping seasons.

Post-season’s qualifying standards have plunged since 1968 when the Detroit Tigers were the last team to win a World Series by capturing the American League crown, and then advancing straight to the World Series. Ten times in history, teams have won 100 plus games and not even qualified for playoffs. Led by batting champion Norm Cash and his .361 average, the 1961 Tigers won 101 games, but finished eight games behind the Yankees. That’s the way it should be. Teams that feel deprived when they don’t get past the wild card have a simple solution: win more games during the season. Under the projected format, however, teams under .500 that qualify for the playoffs will be commonplace.

Unhappy fans might as well throw in the towel. Money overrides all other considerations. As money-hungry MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said: “Baseball is a growth industry. Eventually, we’d like to get to 32 teams.” Under the new set-up, MLB owners and players will cash in. MLB currently grosses more than $10 billion annually. With two new clubs, the owners would likely add $2 billion or more in expansion fees, and new media rights’ revenues.

MLB negotiated a new seven-year television contracts with Fox and Turner Broadcasting – TBS and TNT – which will fetch $8.3 billion, a 40 percent increase over prior contracts, mostly for the right to broadcast postseason games. Expansion, possibly to Portland, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville, Montreal, Vancouver or Mexico, is assuredly in baseball’s future, assuming 75 percent of the owners vote favorably. More teams mean more playoff games, and will generate much more revenue.

Players are all-in on expansion too. As part of the new collective bargaining agreement, players also win. More team revenues will mean higher minimum salaries, and player-friendly free-agency agreements. Today, baseball’s minimum salary is $572,000; the average is $4.2 million; and the most eye-popping incomes are the Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout, a $427 million contract paid out over 12 years, and the New York Yankees’ Garrett Cole, $324 million spread out over nine years. Trout and Cole’s annual incomes are $37.7 million and $32.4 million, respectively.

In his giddy anticipation of never-ending revenues, Manfred is overlooking one important variable. Baseball’s television audience is dwindling. The under-18 market doesn’t care about baseball, a sport they consider too boring. Once baseball’s most passionate fans, youths have shifted their allegiance to soccer, basketball and football. Older fans, another of baseball’s traditional backbones, are dissatisfied with the constant changes, and have lost interest. Younger and older fans agree that baseball’s most important games, the playoffs and the All-Star Game, start too late; they yearn for old-fashioned day games. Kids go to school, adults work. All-Star Game television ratings have been in free-fall for years, and bottomed out in 2021 when only 8.2 million tuned in. Proof of fans’ indifference: compared to 2019, the last full 162-game season, the 29 regional sports networks that Nielsen Media Research measured reflected a 12 percent audience drop.

Baseball is on a collision course with overkill, and many consider its death overdue. No fan, young or old, is naïve enough to think that Manfred cares about baseball. His self-confessed mission is simple: let’s follow the money.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Overkill Predicted For Baseball

Overkill Predicted For Baseball

Biden Frivolously Neglects National Security

By Joe Guzzardi  

To learn first-hand how negligent the federal government is about national security, book an airline reservation to any destination. By comparison to the open Southwest border, airports are locked down tight.

The pre-boarding drill is too familiar. Travelers, once at the football-field long Transportation Safety Administration pre-boarding line, must remove shoes. After taking out iPads, liquids, gels and aerosol items (maximum 3.4 ounce-capacity) which have been packed into one quart-sized, clear plastic bag with a zip-top closure, airplane passengers then must toss their baggage into bins for screening.

After that frustrating drill, passengers must show government-issued identification with a current photograph to a TSA official, and go through a metal detector. Unlucky passengers are pulled aside for further screening with either a full-body pat-down or a handheld wand that’s passed across the upper torso, hands, legs and backsides. These considerable inconveniences that often involve affronts to privacy cost taxpayers $7.7 billion annually.

At the border, however, illegal aliens from more than 100 countries have been able to walk right in, surrender to Customs and Border Protection agents, and wait for transportation to their final destination within the U.S. The aliens’ backgrounds and health status at the time of their crossing are unknown. But, after the fact, officials learned that more than 18 percent of illegal immigrant families and 20 percent of unaccompanied minorswho recently crossed the U.S. border tested COVID-positive before border agents released them into the interior.

Moreover, trusted border sources revealed that, exclusive of their immigration offenses, 15 percent of border crossers have criminal records. Edgar Campos-Campos, for example, a previously deported and now detained Mexican national, was convicted of aggravated statutory rape in Bedford County, Tenn. Immigration law, until Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas redefined to his advantage what criminal behavior is, banned convicted felons from reentry. In his memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tae D. Johnson, Mayorkas also doubled down on keeping the border crisis overheated when he pronounced that “undocumented non-citizens,” as he calls illegal immigrants, won’t be deported unless they represent a threat to border security, national security or public safety.

The contrast between airport security and open border insecurity proves that the U.S. isn’t a serious country. If the federal government should suddenly become motivated to protect its citizens, the border could be secured in little time. Israel can share its approach. Last month, Israel Aerospace Industries, a defense contractor, introduced REX MKII, a remote-controlled robot that can patrol border zones and track infiltrators. The unmanned vehicle can be tablet or manually controlled to achieve the most effective movement or surveillance functions. REX MKII is the latest addition to the drone technology world. Proponents claim that semi-autonomous machines, like the four-wheel-drive robot REX MKII, provide a large range of protection as they gather intelligence. The Israeli military currently uses a smaller but similar vehicle called the Jaguar to patrol Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.

Israel is keenly aware of threats from foreign enemies, but the U.S. is indifferent to the identical risks. Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, ousted by Biden after his 30-year career defending the homeland, said that terrorists and other criminals, now aware that the border is open, are diligently trying to cross into the U.S. Scott said that criminals want to gain access to the U.S. interior. Statistically, Scott added, the widely available public CBP statistics prove that every year the illegal entries always include rapists, murderers and potential terrorists. “Those all exist in who we actually catch,” Scott said, concluding that “to think there is not just as bad or worse people in those getting away would be naive.”

Scott’s credible warnings should be heeded. Moreover, last year’s DHS Assessment Threat predicted the 15,000-strong Haitian surge, also ignored. Neither Biden nor his immigration czar Vice President Kamala Harris has been to the border, proof of their superficiality. DHS Secretary Mayorkas continues to undermine national security and subvert immigration law with his dangerous statements and inaction. In the Biden White House, naïveté, to Scott’s assessment, reigns.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Biden Frivolously Neglects National Security

September BLS Report Boon To Open Immigration Boosters

By Joe Guzzardi

For the second consecutive month, Wall Street analysts and media business forecasters badly missed the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s job creation total. Dow Jones projected 500,000 new jobs for September, a greater than 300,000 misfire after the true BLS number came in at 194,000. Television commentators were aghast at their second straight BLS whiff. August’s expected jobs creation total was predicted to be 720,000, which turned out to be a more inaccurate forecast than September’s when the so-called experts were off the mark by 485,000 jobs. In August, the economy created a mere 235,000 jobs.

No surprise that COVID-19 took the brunt of the blame for the steep declines, particularly among workers in education and local/state employment, but also among bus drivers, food service workers and substitute teachers. Another variable that added to the dismal September results was the disappearance from the labor force of many older, low-wage workers still fearful about COVID-19 and its Delta variant. A historic 11 million jobs are open and available. As far as the economy and job creation are concerned, the U.S. is still in COVID-19’s grasp.

“We’re hiring” signs are everywhere, yet few workers have stepped up to fill the jobs. Although openings are at or near an all-time record, one hurdle to attracting employees is that many of the positions require in-person work for construction, hospitality, delivery services or warehousing, the exact types of jobs too many Americans shun in the current environment. Thanks to the pandemic fear the government and scare-mongering media have instilled in the general public, potential workers stay away from close-contact employment. Consequently, most job seekers are hopeful of finding mostly unavailable remote work. A recent review of the ZipRecruiter websitefound that only one in 10 postings offered remote employment.

When workers are in short supply, the clarion call for more immigration inevitably follows. Bill Kristol, for example, once a conservative, now a Democrat, and always an immigration advocate, put out a tweet which proclaimed that immigration could solve the economy’s employment doldrums. Kristol wrote: “We can debate infrastructure, tax policy, government spending, etc. But it’s not a close call as to the one thing that would do the most for our economy across the board: More immigration. Both ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled.’ Which the Administration and Congress have done nothing on.”

Well – not exactly nothing. Kristol must not be paying attention to the immigration news. Encouraging illegal immigration, bringing Afghan evacuees to the U.S. and raising the refugee cap are definitely something. Soon the U.S. will have a worker surplus. The 15,000 Haitians who surged the border, the 50,000 or more Afghanistan evacuees and the 125,000 refugees that Biden has committed to for fiscal 2021-22, and the 2 million released-at-the-border illegal aliens will inevitably receive employment authorization. Also on their way to compete for jobs in the U.S. labor pool are the annual 1 million-plus legal immigrants who, as part of their permanent residency, receive lifetime valid work permits. Finally, add about 700,000 guest workers that traditionally enter the U.S. to perform jobs which range from medical doctors to agriculture-based employees.

The approximately 1 million legal and 2 million illegal immigrants, the evacuees, the refugees and the guest workers will go a long way to making Kristol and the immigration lobby’s dreams come true. And if Congress passes the reconciliation bill that it’s kicking around, about 8 million more aliens will be granted amnesty, receive legal status and work permits. COVID-19 restrictions could impact the foreign-born arrivals, but illegal immigrant amnesty candidates already represent several million work permits.

High immigration and the lower wages immigrants earn harm those that can least withstand economic setbacks – American blacks and Hispanics, other minorities, the disabled, recently arrived low-skilled legal immigrants and others without a college degree. More immigration, regardless of how much it may hurt Americans who fund it, is the blueprint that the Biden administration has, to the disappointment of most, chosen to follow, and is committed to.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

September BLS Report Boon To Open Immigration Boosters

Chamber Of Commerce Wins, Workers Lose

By Joe Guzzardi 

A George W. Bush federal judge appointee voided a Trump-era H-1Bregulation that switched the visa allocation system from a random selection lottery to a process that prioritizes higher-wage jobs. By putting emphasis on higher wages, tech employers would, President Trump hoped, be less likely to hire cheaper, foreign-born workers, and instead select more qualified overseas and American employees.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division granted the Chamber of Commerce’s (COC) motion for summary judgment, and permanently struck down the Trump-era changes to the H-1B visa. White’s ruling, based on his assessment that then-Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf was not lawfully serving in his role at the time, was a triumph for the Chamber and other cheap labor-addicted employers, and another setback for U.S. tech workers.

Chamber Vice President of Immigration Policy, Jon Baselice, called White’s ruling “…a major victory for American businesses and our economy. If implemented, the H-1B lottery rule would have denied many companies access to the talent they need to expand their operations and create American jobs.” COC is not the working man’s voice; the largest D.C. lobbyspent $30 million in 2021 often with the goal of keeping a steady cheap labor flow going to bolster American industries’ bottom line.

The COC’s lawsuit specifically brought up the issue that if the H-1B selection process prioritizes highest wages, then international students would be harmed because they are recent graduates and getting entry-level wages. The judge ignored that argument and decided to judge the case solely on the fact Chad Wolf was, in his view, illegally appointed as DHS Secretary.

President Trump’s goal aspired to raise the wages that employers would have to pay to H-1B visa holders, or optionally to hire from the unemployed, displaced U.S. tech worker pool. Early in his four-year term, President Trump signed his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order which, on January 21, Biden revoked. The Biden administration’s labor objective is the direct opposite of Trump’s. Biden proposed to increase employment-based visas, and eliminate the country cap which would open up jobs for foreign nationals, almost exclusively to Indians.

For decades, H-1B visas have been controversial. Supporters claim the visa holders are highly skilled, outperform U.S. tech workers, and without them, America would quickly become noncompetitive in the global market. Opponents allege that tech employers have abused the original intent of the visa to complement the existing American workforce and that as currently applied is unfair to both international and U.S. tech workers. The Economic Policy Institute’s Daniel Costa wrote that employers have “hijacked the system” by using between one-third to one-half of the H-1B visas to replace thousands of U.S. workers with “much-lower-paid H-1B workers while also sending tech jobs abroad.”

Lobbyists like the Chamber of Commerce argue, falsely, that U.S. tech workers aren’t available, and importing “the best and brightest” is essential. But employers aren’t legally required to recruit Americans or prove that they have a labor shortage before they hire H-1Bs who they can, also legally, underpay. Moreover, the employer chooses whether his employee receives Level 1 or Level 2 wages, the lowest, and the government doesn’t check unless the unlikely happens – workers file a lawsuit or a complaint. If and when a foreign national files a lawsuit, he risks that his employer, who controls his visa, could take steps to have him deported.

For more than 30 years, ample evidence has been presented to Congress that the H-1B harms U.S. tech workers. Nevertheless, tech employers, the Chamber of Commerce and immigration lawyers have consistently persuaded Congress – to U.S. tech workers’ detriment – that H-1B foreign-born employees are an indispensable cog necessary to keep the economy purring.

Ray Marshall from President Jimmy Carter’s administration put forward the most concise, critical, but accurate H-1B summation. Said Marshall, who as Labor Secretary understood the negative effect imported workers had on Americans: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…. H-1B pays below market rate. If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.” Marshall described the great deal employers and foreign-born workers get, but the raw deal for U.S. tech workers.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Chamber Of Commerce Wins, Workers Lose

Biden Haitian Deportations, Too Little, Too Late

By Joe Guzzardi 

The Biden administration announced the other week that it was beginning daily flights to return Haitian illegal immigrants from their makeshift shelters under Texas’ International Bridge. The first flights left Sept. 19. As many as 14,000 Haitians have arrived in Del Rio with the anticipation that, like thousands of other aliens who preceded them, they’ll be processed and admitted to the U.S. But, the rub – Haiti, recovering from a magnitude 7.2 earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people and damaged more than 100,000 homes, is unwilling to accept more than three flights a day.

Ironically, given that since Biden’s first day in office, he’s abdicated the chief executive’s responsibility to enforce immigration laws that Congress has passed, and previous presidents have signed, the administration’s official statement that returning the Haitians is “about border enforcement” rings hollow.

More probable is that the disconcerting images and videos of thousands of Haitians wading across the Rio Grande, then clustered in squalid, unsanitary conditions – with rumors of more on the way – caught the attention of The Washington Post and The New York Times. Their awareness led to what is, for those publications, a harsh appraisal of the administration’s border crisis mismanagement. After observing the sea of humanity at the bridge, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican whose district runs along the majority of the Texas border with Mexico, just north of the Rio Grande, said he thought he was in a third world country with literally no border – “it’s just been muddied over.” The administration may have concluded that it couldn’t afford to lose the establishment media’s immigration policy support.

An Associated Press story on the migrant airlift to Haiti predicted that no more than two planes would depart daily, a conclusion that’s probably the most optimistic possible outcome. Whether two or eight flights back to Haiti, Texas would still be left with thousands of Haitian migrants, as well as foreign nationals from 90 countries arriving daily to seek asylum or humanitarian protection. Thousands of Haitians arrived stateside before the earthquake hit.

Nowhere has Biden’s law-shirking been more evident than his feckless open border tolerance that’s gravely harmed several border states, none more so than Texas. To his credit, Gov. Greg Abbott with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s assistance launched “Operation Lone Star” to push back against unchecked illegal immigration, fentanyl trafficking that with Chinese money launderers’ helping hand has earned criminals billions of dollars, and human smuggling that too often leads to children sold into the sex trade. Abbott’s strategy to protect Texans came after his agreement to work with Biden on the closure of six Texas ports of entry to restore immigration enforcement collapsed.

Operation Lone Star will deploy air, ground, marine and tactical border security assets to high threat areas to deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas. In a statement, Abbott said that because of Biden’s neglect, the southern border crisis continues to escalate. Abbott added: “Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis.” Abbott signed a $1.8 billion border security bill to increase immigration detention facilities, $750 million of which will be applied to a so-called border barrier that could include temporary chain fences and concrete barriers. This summer, Texas committed $250 million as a down payment for its version of the Trump border wall.

The Constitution, Article IV, Section 4, “guarantees to every state in this union” that “it shall protect each of them against Invasion.” With an anticipated 2 million illegal aliens who will surge the border this year, invasion is the proper word to describe conditions in the Rio Grande Valley, and other Texas entry points. The total illegal crossers include an estimated 40,000 COVID-19 positive aliens. Vaccinations are not mandated for these crossers, who are released into destinations across the nation. And in Texas, a record 10,800 unaccompanied minors entered. August was the second consecutive month that the Department of Homeland Security reported more than 200,000 illegal immigrant encounters.

Once released, aliens become the states’ responsibility – jobs training, housing, transportation, medical care, education – all the necessities that humans need to lead meaningful lives, but which taxpayers must underwrite. If the White House violates the Constitution, and refuses to protect Texas and the other 49 states against foreign incursion, then to safeguard its citizens, individual states must assume the responsibility to defend themselves.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.com.

Biden Haitian Deportations, Too Little, Too Late