By Dan Hart
The Washington Stand
In a vivid reminder of the ongoing security crisis occurring along the U.S. southern border, a large group of illegal immigrants stormed and breached a security fence near the border in El Paso, Texas on Thursday, knocking over several members of the Texas National Guard in the process. Experts say the lack of consequences for illegally crossing the border under the Biden administration is only encouraging further lawlessness.
Video footage of the incident shows a cohort of approximately 100 male migrants, part of a larger group of 300, ripping down a razor wire fence and forcefully shoving their way past a much smaller group of Texas National Guardsmen who were attempting to secure the opening, with a number of soldiers being knocked to the ground in the process. The migrants can then be seen running toward the main border fence, where their progress was halted.
Law enforcement officials told Fox News that all the illegal border crossers had been apprehended, with one migrant arrested so far for assaulting a Guardsman. One source stated that “more arrests are likely coming for destruction of property and assault.”
“Migrants overrunning National Guardsmen — but we are being told [that it’s racist] to say we are being invaded,” Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, wrote on X Friday. “This also shows the state of our immigration laws where people feel entitled to violate our sovereignty knowing there are no consequences under the Biden Admin.”
“Just in case people are unsure, this is what an invasion looks like,” Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) noted Thursday.
The incident comes as a new Texas law that allows police to arrest illegal immigrants remains hamstrung in the court system, where legal challenges have held it up in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Texas officials like Governor Greg Abbott (R) have argued that the law is necessary due to President Joe Biden’s refusal to take action to stem the surge of illegal border crossings. “Number one, we are facing such dangerous situations,” he remarked Wednesday. “And number two, Joe Biden, through his actions, is violating the laws of the United States of America.”
As observed by National Review’s Rich Lowry, the crisis can be traced back to February 2, 2021, when Biden signed an executive order “revok[ing] a slew of Trump rules, executive orders, proclamations, and memoranda” related to the border, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy. As a result, the number of illegal immigrant encounters at the border reached levels previously never seen, peaking at almost 250,000 encounters in December 2023 alone. In total, there have been roughly 8.3 million encounters and 1.7 million gotaways under Biden. This represents a 100% increase over the numbers in 2019 before Biden took office.
This past February, sources indicated that President Biden was considering taking executive action that would have restored parts of former President Donald Trump’s policies that had kept the levels of illegal border crossings relatively low. But as of now, there has been no indication that Biden will follow through on any actions.
As has been reported previously, the effects of the unprecedented flood of illegal immigration into the U.S. has been wide-ranging in scope, including increases in the seizure of fentanyl, encounters and arrest of individuals on the terror watchlist as well as Chinese nationals, violent crime, human trafficking, and drains on the resources of cities, the education system, and taxpayer funds.
In comments to The Washington Stand, Rob Law, director of the Center for Homeland Security & Immigration at the America First Policy Institute, argued that Biden’s border policies have inflamed lawlessness at the border.
“The chaos in Texas Thursday is the latest example of the harmful consequences of the Biden administration’s open border policies,” he contended. “This large group of illegal aliens, mostly single adult males, destroyed property and assaulted law enforcement because they feel entitled to be allowed into the U.S. These are clearly not legitimate asylum seekers, and the Biden administration’s failed strategy of mass catch-and-release has fueled an unprecedented level of illegal immigration. It is past time for the Biden administration to stop admiring the problem and change course by introducing policies that secure the border and keep American communities safe.”
Originally published at The Washington Stand!
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.
