If there was ever a moment for a sense of urgency from Washington about America’s border crisis, that time is now.
“As of Sunday, only seven months into the year, we have now surpassed the total southwest border apprehensions of every fiscal year since 2009,” U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost told members of a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee yesterday.
🎬 Watch: Border Patrol chief explains our immigration crisis in 6 minutes
Because of dangerous loopholes in American immigration laws, today “family units” and unaccompanied children account for 64 percent of all apprehensions at the southern border. Illegal immigrants and human smugglers “have received the message loud and clear,” Provost says.
“Bring a child—you will be released.”
That policy creates an unmitigated humanitarian and security disaster. One problem is that illegal immigration is dangerous and often relies on criminal smugglers to breach the border. Bringing young children along in that journey puts them at grave risk.
An even more pressing danger comes from “fake families”—a growing phenomenon where children are unwillingly paired with nonparent adults to game U.S. asylum laws. Once entry is granted, those children become expendable, sometimes being appallingly “recycled” back across the border for use by another asylum-seeker.
Congress needs to take action—and that doesn’t simply mean building more temporary facilities, Provost said. “It’s like holding a bucket under a faucet. It doesn’t matter how many buckets you give me if we can’t turn off the flow.”
President Trump is calling on Congress to respond to this humanitarian crisis.
More: Feds released 168,000 illegal immigrant family members into communities
