ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked President Biden if he needed to explicitly tell migrants not to come to the United States during an interview Tuesday night. The interview followed a report that more than 13,000 children have been apprehended at the border. This shocking number is a 20-year high, and many will remain in detention and mass shelters longer than the law allows until alternative shelters like the Dallas convention center and tent cities can be made ready.
Amid a surge of migrants and unaccompanied minors on the U.S. southern border, Stephanopoulos asked the president, “Do you have to say quite clearly, ‘Don’t come’?”
“Yes, I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over,” Biden said during the wide-ranging interview in Darby, Pennsylvania.
“Don’t leave your town or city or community,” he added.
Not sure that will resonate louder than Biden’s previous statements, which included promising no deportations in his first 100 days and calling for a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants. The word is out, and I am not sure those traveling to the border in mass numbers from around the globe are checking the news to see what Biden is saying now.
DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas also issued a statement yesterday full of half-truths and trying to shift blame for the current situation on Orange Man Bad by saying President Trump destroyed orderly processes at the border. The Trump administration actually conditioned asylum as our laws and our international agreements call for:
The United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol define a refugee as a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country, and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Congress incorporated this definition into U.S. immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980. The vast majority of illegal immigrants coming to the United States are coming for economic reasons.
The vast majority of migrants seeking asylum are coming for economic reasons. Leaving a country with high crime rates does not fit the definition of asylum simply because it’s dangerous. Mayorkas also complains about the Trump administration’s Safe Third Country rule. That process is detailed in the law governing asylum. One might call the Trump policy “enforcing the law as written.”
Mayorkas also points out the elimination of the Central American Minors Program, which allowed children to apply in their home country. The Trump administration tried to get everyone to apply for asylum in their home country. Importing children outside of a family reunification situation is just importing them into a system that may be worse than the one they fled. He alleges that children were handed to traffickers by the Trump administration.
This accusation is wild since the lax and careless placement of children during to Obama/Biden administration prompted a bipartisan Senate investigation, which uncovered horrific facts. The Trump administration actively tried to identify trafficked children at the border by using rapid DNA tests. Limitations on the detention of families imposed by the courts also started a horrific practice of kidnapping, buying, and recycling children to impersonate a migrating family. The Trump administration tried to fight this practice, rescuing at least 600 children caught in this situation.
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There was much fanfare about President Biden reversing the Remain in Mexico policy. Yet, according to Mayorkas’s statement and Biden’s interview, single adults and families are being expelled to Mexico if they come from Mexico or the Northern Triangle and their home country if they are from somewhere else. Limited resources in Mexico have created a situation where some families are admitted to U.S. facilities. However, many are remaining in Mexico.
Mayorkas also blames the elimination of foreign aid to the Northern Triangle for increased migration. The Trump administration took an approach of cooperation on immigration in exchange for investment rather than foreign aid, which is a black hole of money shoveled into NGO’s whose activities and impact are never measured. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo worked directly with the heads of state in these countries to broker agreements. We also provided humanitarian aid and disaster assistance teams following the two devastating hurricanes that hit Honduras.
Perhaps if the Biden administration were just honest with migrants, they would stay home. Tell them cartels run the Mexico side of the border and see migrants as commodities, not human beings. They may very well be forced into debt bondage due to the high cost of passage and be pressured into illegal activities once in the U.S., which increases their chances of deportation.
Additionally, the cities they most often migrate to are becoming more dangerous, reversing decades of falling violent crime rates in the United States. By the end of 2020, Chicago police reported more than 750 murders, a jump of more than 50% compared with 2019. By mid-December, Los Angeles saw a 30% increase over the previous year with 322 homicides. There were 437 homicides in New York City by Dec. 20, nearly 40% more than 2019. Other cities in the top seven, Miami, Washington D.C., Houston, and Dallas, have also seen increases in violent crime. The outlook for 2021, based on the first few months, indicates this trend will continue.
Oddly, the trends in their home countries are going in the opposite direction. Tucker Carlson was on location in El Salvador last night and reported the following:
In 2018, the city of Baltimore recorded a higher murder rate than the nation of El Salvador — or for that matter, the countries of Honduras, Guatemala, or Afghanistan, even. And yet, no one thought to call FEMA to help the people of Baltimore. Somebody should have. No one from Baltimore was offered asylum in El Salvador. By the way, if they are offered, they should strongly consider accepting, because it’s much safer to live with MS-13 than it is to live in Baltimore.
It would be far safer to go to Honduras. In 2018, 30 of the 298 municipalities in Honduras reported no murders at all. Same in Guatemala and in El Salvador, where 14 municipalities reported zero murders. That is a massive improvement over so many of our cities.
So, here’s an idea: If you’re telling us that parts of Central America are so dangerous that crime constitutes a humanitarian crisis, and that’s exactly what the Biden administration is claiming, then why not just move the people of El Salvador, or Honduras or Guatemala to safer parts of their own countries?
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele confirmed this assessment, noting that violent crime and murder in his country had decreased 75%. Economic opportunity has increased since he took office just over 18 months ago. Bukele says his citizens are not creating large caravans to migrate to the U.S., though Honduras and Guatemala are. It seems like maybe the Trump administration did help El Salvador address the root causes of migration no matter what Mayorkas says.
WATCH the portion of Carlson’s interview with President Nayib Bukele aired Tuesday night:
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