Illegal border crossings are down from the eye-watering levels during the rush before the end of Title 42.
Some House Democrats visited the border last week and called it “much improved.”
President Biden responded to a reporter’s question about the border a couple weeks ago saying it was “much better than you all expected.”
So the border crisis is over, right?
Hardly.
The administration’s goal at the border has never been to stop the flow of people who have no right to come to the United States. Rather, the White House just wants the problem to stop being in the news.
It wasn’t bothered by the fact that the limits on immigration Congress passed were being flouted, but that they were being flouted in a disorderly manner that made them look bad.
Solution? Replace the chaotic violation of America’s borders with an orderly violation of America’s borders.
This is the job of the CBP One app, which allows people to schedule their illegal immigration.
So instead of crossing the border illegally and turning themselves in to the Border Patrol and then get released into the United States, they can now make an appointment to be let in “legally” at a port of entry and then get released into the United States.
But regardless of who breaks the law — the aliens by jumping the border or the administration by letting them in at the ports of entry — it’s all still illegal immigration.
This is what the administration means when it talks about “expanding legal pathways” to America as an alternative to illegal immigration.
You might think it would be Congress’ job to decide if the number of immigrants admitted to the country should be expanded, not the president’s.
But as in so many other areas of government policy, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security is set on brazenly violating the immigration law and the Constitution until somebody stops it.
The result is funneling inadmissible migrants through the ports of entry (including international airports inside the country) at a rate of 1,000 a day, which the administration says it can increase by however much it wants, whenever it wants.
And the number of migrants the president decides to illegally let in is sure to increase.
One of the “expanded legal pathways” — for people from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti — was given an arbitrary cap of 30,000 a month.
But the number of people in the United States who have signed up to “sponsor” illegal immigrants from these countries has blown past 1.5 million in just a few months.
Since the cap of 30,000 per month was made up to begin with, you can bet the administration will just make up a higher cap and illegally admit even more people.
But however high the cap is for this and the other “expanded legal pathways,” it will never be high enough.
That’s why some migrants, tired of waiting for an appointment, are just coming to the ports of entry and taking advantage of a loophole in supposedly tough new rules to claim they’re having technical problems with the app.
Our reporting (still underway) suggests that other people tired of waiting for a CBP One appointment are just crossing the border illegally and being let go, as before.
And if all else fails, aliens are just sneaking across the border and successfully eluding the overburdened and demoralized Border Patrol, in what appears to be an epidemic of “runners” and “gotaways.”
Over? The border crisis is just getting started.
Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
