Former Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook writing for The Washington Times offers an analysis today of a Border Patrol report that reveals “unaccompanied minors” are only one-fourth of the current invasion from Central America across our Southwest border.
The crossings by family units have increased almost five times faster. This contradicts White House and media efforts to elicit public sympathy by focusing public attention on children.
Total other-than-Mexican (OTM) apprehensions were 202,951 in the Southwest Border Sector (with three-fourths of those in the Rio Grande Valley) from Oct.1 through June 30. Of those, 57,525 were “unaccompanied alien children.” The other 145,426 persons were among 55,420 “family units” who also crossed the border, according to the report.
The Border Patrol report reveals far more explosive increase of illegal immigration by families than by minors. The increase among minors is 106 percent great than fiscal year 2013. But among family units the increase is an incredible 493 percent.
The White House keeps a tight lid on letting the Border Patrol release information, wrongfully claiming that privacy law blocks the release of statistics. So nobody has explained the skyrocketing border crossings by family units, nor explained why they haven’t been immediately flown back to Central America. Airline fare from our border to there is only $667 per person, far less than the costs being incurred to taxpayers.
Click here to read more from The Washington Post.
Texas Governor Rick Perry Monday deployed 1,000 Texas National Guard to the border saying he can not idly sit by while “our citizens are under siege.”
Pointing out the tens of thousands pf unaccompanied minors only make up roughly 20 percent of those being apprehended illegally crossing the border, Perry said he can no longer wait for the president to act as gang members and drug cartels flood into Texas, causing crime to skyrocket. Perry pointed out Texas tax payers can not bear the expense of processing and housing the surge of illegal immigration caused by President Obama’s 2012 executive action “Dream Act” which has given people in Central America the idea children will be allowed to stay once in the U.S.
Perry has repeatedly called on President Obama to visit the border, calling his refusal Obama’s “Katrina,” moment.
Click here for Perry’s announcement from Breitbart.com.
Further, an analysis in The Washington Times suggests that Americans are hitting the boiling point over the border.
Krikorian writes: It’s probably not true that a frog will allow itself to be boiled alive if only the heat is raised slowly enough, but it’s an irresistible image nonetheless.
However, the anti-borders forces — on the left and the right — have counted on such passivity among the public to incrementally erode the American people’s ability to decide who gets to move here from abroad. They have devised endless opportunities to appeal deportation decisions, prevented the implementation of needed control measures, pushed relentlessly to pierce numerical caps, and created strong incentives against government functionaries saying “no” to those who want to come. The motto over the doorway of the immigration office might as well be “It ain’t over til the alien wins.”
President Obama has turned up the heat over the past five years. Using “prosecutorial discretion” as a pretext, he has exempted the vast majority of illegal aliens from the consequences of their actions. He has formally amnestied — without legislative authorization — more than a half-million illegal immigrants who claim to have come here before age 16. He is signaling that sometime this year he will unilaterally, and illegally, provide amnesty for half or more of the roughly 12 million illegal aliens now living in the United States.
All this generated some pushback, of course, but not enough to get the frog to jump out of the pot.
The border crisis seems to be changing that.
Tens of thousands of teenagers and families from Central America have poured into Texas, drawn by the Obama administration’s lax enforcement policies. There should be an emergency response to this unprecedented crisis, featuring military backup, tent cities, expedited processing and uncompromising rhetoric. Instead, the illegal immigrants are simply being released into the United States with a summons to appear in immigration court. The majority will ignore the summons with impunity, but it allows them to reside and travel here legally until the court date, leading to its being nicknamed a “permiso,” or permit.
America’s King George?
The administration’s frivolous approach to the deluge is clear from a recent request for an extra $3.7 billion to address it. The majority of funds would go not to enforcement but to efforts at resettling the illegal aliens in the United States.
The response of the administration and its supporters to the breakdown of the border in South Texas seems to have finally gotten a large share of the public to see what’s happening. Even the White House’s use of illegal-alien children as human shields for its anti-sovereignty policies has not managed to allay the increasing sense of alarm across the country.