Biden’s Rhetoric on Immigration Fueling Humanitarian and Security Crisis: Rep. Babin

hm1996

Moderator
Staff member
20 March, 2021 According to a Fox news report quoting CBP figures, during the past 24 hours, in the Rio Grand Valley Sector, 2307 illegals were apprehended; Fiscal year 2021, year to date,there were 135,453 apprehensions compared to same period in 2020. That is an increase of 195%! Del Rio sector was up 271% for the same period!

This does not count the number of "getaways" which were spotted but managed to evade capture, which I believe they estimated to be approximately 15%.

"The Biden administration plans to reopen a facility to house unaccompanied migrant teens that the Trump administration closed. The facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas can house up to 700 children at a time."

This facility has already been overwhelmed and two others opened, one @ Dallas is open and another is being readied @
Midland. 10% of the inhabitants @ Carrizo Springs facility have tested positive for Covid; it is currently unknown how many Dallas facility are infected.

Even more worrisome in the near future is the huge number of illegals that are being release and allowed to travel wherever they wish with a "promise" to show up for their court hearing, without benefit of covid testing.

But, there is no crisis at the border, "We will be able to handle it."
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Biden’s Rhetoric on Immigration Fueling Humanitarian and Security Crisis: Rep. Babin

By Tom Ozimek and Jan Jekielek
March 20, 2021 Updated: March 20, 2021

Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) said Friday that President Joe Biden’s rhetoric was fueling what he described as a humanitarian and national security crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

After taking office, President Joe Biden rushed to end some border policies of his predecessor, proposed a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the United States illegally, and promised in an executive order to “create a humane asylum system.”

While the Biden administration has insisted that would-be immigrants should still follow the legal process for entering the country and that the border has not, as some contend, been flung open, the recent surge of illegal immigration suggests that is how it’s being interpreted by many.

In recent days, the numbers of children and families caught trying to enter the United States illegally from Mexico has grown to magnitudes unseen since before the pandemic. Customs and Border Protection has noted a more than 100 percent month-over-month increase in February in two categories of illegal aliens—family units and unaccompanied minors.

Babin told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” that “hundreds of countries are sending people over to the United States because of these promises.”

“Come on up here, step one foot in, and you will be admitted,” Babin said, characterizing the thrust of the Biden administration’s messaging on immigration. “And eventually you will be on a path to citizenship and you’ll receive an education … you’ll get free health care, you will get even stimulus checks,” he added.

The Biden administration announced on Feb. 12 that asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico for court dates could be released in the United States while their cases wind through the system. The policy shift extends only to an estimated 26,000 asylum-seekers with active cases under former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which Biden rolled back. As of Monday, 2,114 people in the program had been admitted to the United States at crossings in San Diego and the Texas cities of El Paso and Brownsville.

But many migrants interpreted the February announcement to mean the border was “open” and rushed on hopes of being admitted to the United States, according to Edgar Benjamin Paz, a Honduran man whose family’s tent is among the hundreds that have filled every spot in a Mexican plaza in Tijuana, near the busiest U.S.-Mexico border crossing.

Republicans have highlighted the border surge and blame Biden.

“This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Monday while leading a large GOP delegation to El Paso, Texas. “There’s no other way to claim it than a Biden border crisis.”

Biden administration officials have pushed back against claims that their policies have led to reduced border security.

“The border is secure and the border is not open,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told members of Congress during a Wednesday hearing. The White House has also called on people not to undertake illegal border crossings.

Mayorkas, in an interview Thursday on CBS News, said: “It is not safe to take the journey, it is not safe in a time of pandemic to arrive at the border. Families and single adults are being expelled. Let us rebuild, if I may, a safe, orderly way for you to apply for humanitarian relief under the laws of our country.”

Biden, in interview this week with ABC News, said his message to migrants was, “Don’t leave your town or city or community.”

Mayorkas has also bristled at suggestions that the southern border is in crisis, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki has tried to avoid using the term.

Babin insisted in the interview that it is, indeed, a crisis, “and I think it’s an abuse of people to make a migratory track that is filled with danger,” he said. He spoke of “unspeakable crimes and atrocities” committed by people who prey on vulnerable migrants in the border region.

“I’ve seen things called rape trees,” Babin said, referring to the phenomenon of trees and bushes along the border found draped in women’s undergarments.

Brendan Lenihan, a lawyer with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, in a memoir-type article for The American Scholar, recalled encountering a “rape tree” while on patrol.

“This time, I came upon a velvet mesquite tree draped in women’s lingerie,” he wrote. “The Border Patrol calls these ‘rape trees.’ It’s difficult to know whether these displays are merely symbolic of a woman’s vulnerability in this place or are the actual trophies of sexual violence. Either way, women who understand the risks of this desert sometimes ingest morning-after pills before even attempting to cross,” he wrote.

Babin said that, by his estimates, around one third of women and children who attempt to cross the border illegally fall victim to sexual abuse.

“And the humanitarian aspects of this not only for the American people, but for these poor migrants that come on a 1,000-mile trek, sometimes a 10,000-mile trek to get into this country, with these promises, and being abused by cartels and who knows who on the road up here…” Babin said.
Border Patrol agents
Border Patrol agents apprehend a group of illegal immigrants near downtown El Paso, Texas, on March 15, 2021. (Justin Hamel/AFP via Getty Images)

He said the Biden administration’s rhetoric and policies on immigration also “enabled and empowered the Mexican drug cartels who are getting filthy rich” both by smuggling people into the United States and trafficking drugs.

“If you don’t pay the cartels, or if you try to come in without paying the cartels, your life’s in danger,” Babin said. “These cartels are no one to fool with. And they have been definitely empowered by the open borders crowd in the Democratic Party, and especially by President Biden’s rhetoric.”

Commenting on messaging around immigration, Roberta Jacobson, the Biden administration’s coordinator for the southern border, said during a White House press briefing last week that, “it is difficult at times to convey both hope in the future and the danger that is now.”

“We are trying to convey to everybody in the region that we will have legal processes for people in the future, and we’re standing those up as soon as we can,” Jacobson said. “But at the same time, you cannot come through irregular means. … The majority of people will be sent out of the United States.”

Babin represents southeastern Harris County, a Texas district that, while hundreds of miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border, is increasingly impacted by the influx of illegal immigration, he said.

“We have a major trade in human trafficking. Houston is a big focus,” he said. “We’ve had a number of incidents down there, murderers, disappearances, things like this,” he added.

“I’m all for immigration, I think immigration has enriched our nation, our great nation, so much. And each new wave of immigrants coming in bringing something new to the diversity and the greatness of our country,” Babin said. “However, I believe in law and order.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bidens-rhetoric-on-immigration-fueling-humanitarian-and-security-crisis-rep-babin_3742040.html?&utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&email=%5bEMAIL_ADDRESS%5d&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-20-1
 
Quote:portman spoke with border agents who said a processing facility in Paso del Norte is dealing with an increase in migrants of 150 to 200 percent, stretching both manpower and other resources thin.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) toured the border in Arizona with Gov. Doug Ducey, receiving a briefing from Customs and Border Protection and state officers and seeing firsthand “the humanitarian crisis” that Biden’s policies have caused, he said in a statement.

“It’s time for the Biden administration to secure the border and send a clear message of law and order. And it’s time for the president to get down here and see the crisis he’s created,” he added.

‘Alarming:’ Senators Visit Border, See Surge in Illegal Immigrants Firsthand

By Zachary Stieber
March 20, 2021 Updated: March 20, 2021

Senators visiting America’s southern border this week said they witnessed alarming conditions and urged President Joe Biden to quickly take action to stem the surge in illegal crossings.

“It was stunning to see how many people, including unaccompanied children, unlawfully crossed the border,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Friday, after touring an area in El Paso, Texas.

“It was alarming to see the number of migrants who attempted to cross the border in the short time that we were there. One young man noted that they will never stop trying to find a way across,” he added.

Portman spoke with border agents who said a processing facility in Paso del Norte is dealing with an increase in migrants of 150 to 200 percent, stretching both manpower and other resources thin.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) toured the border in Arizona with Gov. Doug Ducey, receiving a briefing from Customs and Border Protection and state officers and seeing firsthand “the humanitarian crisis” that Biden’s policies have caused, he said in a statement.

“It’s time for the Biden administration to secure the border and send a clear message of law and order. And it’s time for the president to get down here and see the crisis he’s created,” he added.

Biden has said he doesn’t have plans to visit the border at this time. He has been traveling in recent days to promote the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package he recently signed into law.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) also visited the border, touching down in El Paso with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a bipartisan group of senators.

Murphy alleged that the Biden administration “is trying their best to uphold the rule of law with humanity” and, like most other Democrats, blamed the situation on the previous administration.

The senator said he was able to tour a border processing facility, where he saw hundreds of children “packed into big open rooms.”

“In a corner, I fought back tears as a 13 yr old girl [cried] uncontrollably explaining thru a translator how terrified she was, having been separated from her grandmother and without her parents,” he wrote on Twitter, adding: “For clarification, kids are no longer separated from their parents at the border (in this case, the girl’s parents are in the US). But even though kids can now stay and apply for asylum, if they are traveling w relatives who aren’t parents, the relative can’t stay.”

The trip was closed to press. Federal officials have also refused media requests for access to border detention facilities and have not released photographs or videos from the structures.

Another delegation is scheduled to visit the border next week, led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Asked about the border crisis, a White House spokesperson told reporters on board Air Force One on Friday that Biden “is committed to implementing an immigration system that is orderly, that is humane, compassionate, and lawful, and his approach is focused on bold action to keep our country safe, strong, and prosperous.”

The administration is “working around the clock” to move unaccompanied minors to sponsors such as relatives, she added.
Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber

https://www.theepochtimes.com/alarming-senators-visit-border-see-surge-in-illegal-immigrants-firsthand_3742064.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&email=hm1996@att.net&utm_campaign=mb-2021-03-21
 
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