Of all Biden’s failings, immigration is in a class by itself. While we may disagree with his other blunders and lament his failures of execution, these have a subjective element. In contrast, Biden’s open border is objectively a deliberate dereliction of duty. It is wrong and dangerous for Biden to make America pay the cost of his political subservience to the extremist left.
Nor does the Biden administration have any way of knowing who came across any more than it knows how many came across.
Biden has had no shortage of blunders during his less than three years in the White House. Abroad he began with a feckless withdrawal from Afghanistan. Then he tried to placate Iran’s ayatollahs to save a doomed (as now admitted by the Administration) and dumb 2015 nuclear deal with this least trustworthy of nations. Of course, his shows of weakness emboldened others; Russia invaded Ukraine and set off a global crisis. More recently, he exchanged $6 billion for Iranian-held American hostages; having got all they could have expected to get (and then some), Iran’s client Hamas was freed to launch its terrorist attack on staunch U.S. ally Israel. (READ MORE from J.T. Young: Are Hispanics Next on the Progressive Hate Parade?)
At home, Biden has been no less “blunderful.” His administration worked to do teacher unions’ bidding to keep COVID school closures going longer. Under his administration, America has seen Washington focused more on indoctrination than education; with learning performance plummeting in its wake. His radical environmental policies promise to raise the price on any appliance that uses gas or electricity. He has also presided over rampant crime in cities run by his party’s elected officials who are wedded to defunding their police rather than defending their citizens by locking up criminals.
Biden’s economy has been distinguished by tepid growth and torrid inflation — the latter undermining the former and bringing with it generationally high interest rates. His budgets likewise have been marked by excessive spending, deficits, and debt.
As “blunderous” as Biden has been, America has had to take it. While Biden’s policies are atrociously bad and his execution of them painful — as his low performance polling shows Americans attest — they are his policies and presidents get to pursue theirs. After all, elections have consequences.
But Biden’s open border policy is different. America can subjectively say Biden’s other policies are bad; however, his failure to exercise his authority to protect America’s southern border is objectively a disaster. It has been ongoing since he took office. Customs and Border Patrol “encounters” in fiscal year 2023 were 2.5 million; this broke the previous record set the year before, which had been 2.4 million. In 2021, the number was 1.7 million. Of course, these are just “encounters;” there is no way of knowing — certainly not by the Biden administration — how many people made it through. And the surge is only rising.
Nor does the Biden administration have any way of knowing who came across any more than it knows how many came across. It is certain that criminals were among them. And virtually equally certain that terrorists were as well; after all, there are no shortage of people who want to hurt Americans, and what could be easier than simply walking across an unenforced border? If terrorists have gone to extraordinary lengths to hijack planes, they would certainly resort to the less difficult way of walking.(READ MORE: Biden Is Not the Democrats’ Biggest Problem)
But we do know that across Biden’s unenforced border have poured drugs. Fentanyl is a national crisis — one of human, criminal, economic, and societal dimensions — and its route in has been across Biden’s unenforced southern border. The death and devastation caused by these drugs is staggering.
According to Dec. 14 Senate testimony by Jim Carroll, the Trump administration’s Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), American overdose deaths are at an all-time high of nearly 110,000 — equivalent to “someone dying every five minutes.”
Why this is happening is as clear as how it is happening: Biden is utterly and completely dependent on the radical left, which seeks nothing more than a non-white majority to wage its culture war. With rapidly falling support elsewhere in America, Biden is retreating to the only enclave that still welcomes him and his policies. Doing their bidding in hopes of saving his failing presidency, he is allowing his presidency to fail even more. And to take America down with it.
Like Alice in Wonderland’s tea party at the Mad Hatter’s, the radicalized leftist elite live in a world apart. Literally. Insulated from the effects of their own failed policies, they force on the rest of us. Failing public schools? Their children don’t attend them. Soaring crime from defunded police departments and lackadaisical leftist prosecutors? They live in gated communities. Environmental policies that price working and middle-class consumers out of products? They can afford them. (READ MORE: Biden Is Not the Democrats’ Biggest Problem)
Like Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat, Biden is fading — and far faster than Alice’s feline friend. But instead of only his smile remaining, Biden is leaving behind an empowered radical left. And nowhere is its imprint more malicious and deliberate than along Biden’s open border.
J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.
