When it’s seeding time on our farm, we seed. When it’s haying time, we put up the hay. And when it’s harvest time, we bring in the crop. We don’t sit around and hope that somebody else will do the job for us. We handle it the Montana way: rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.
That’s the kind of mentality that small business owners, farmers, ranchers and hardworking Montanans all across our state bring to their jobs every single day. And it’s the type of mentality that my colleagues in Congress and President Biden urgently need to bring to the table to secure our border.
Montanans know that what’s happening at our southern border right now is a serious problem, plain and simple. No matter your political beliefs, allowing anyone to enter the country without being properly vetted or going through a legal process undermines our national security.
Thousands of immigrants, most wearing thermal blankets, await processing at a U.S. Border Patrol transit center on Dec. 19, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
We know that drug cartels are taking advantage of these gaps in our border security to traffic drugs and people across the border. That needs to stop.
For too long, Congress has kicked the can down the road on securing our southern border and some have even refused to fund it. It’s time to stop kicking and get the job done.
When I talk to Montana sheriffs and mayors in communities big and small, they all tell me that the situation at our southern border and the deadly fentanyl crisis are having disastrous impacts on the folks they’re sworn to protect. We can save lives by taking action now.
The stories of those impacted Montana families, local governments’ budgets that are stretched thin, and our national security are front of mind for me when I’ve told President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that what’s happening on our southern border is unacceptable.
That is why I urged Senate leaders from both parties to prioritize a solution to the border crisis, one that I believe we should have stayed in Washington and worked over the holidays to solve.
The lack of urgency from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to address this crisis is frankly disturbing.
When I visited our southern border, I stood at a section of the wall near McAllen, Texas, and spoke directly with Border Patrol agents who told me they need additional manpower and resources to get the job done. That’s why I’ve worked with Republicans and Democrats to introduce bipartisan legislation like my FEND Off Fentanyl Act and my ANTI Drugs Act.
These bills would give law enforcement the tools and funds they need to tackle this crisis head on. But politicians who would rather score cheap political points and play politics with our border blocked our bipartisan efforts.
It’s time for Congress to quit the political gamesmanship, put our shoulder to the wheel, and use commonsense proposals like the ones I’ve put forward, and others, to finally get a border deal done that protects our state and country.
Simply put, protecting our country by securing our southern border shouldn’t be a partisan issue – it’s an American issue. Montanans from all political stripes understand that the current systems in place are broken. They want to know why their elected leaders are so dysfunctional that they can’t seem to fix it.
My message to the president and my colleagues in Congress is simple: It’s time to stop pointing fingers, quit using the border as a political talking point, and roll up our sleeves. I’m committed to working with anyone, Republican or Democrat, to get a deal done that secures our borders and protects our state and our country.
A study discredits the claim that climate change is largely responsible for mass migration, suggesting that the Biden administration is using it to distract from its open-border immigration policies. Pictured: A woman walks down a street in Gardi Sugdub, Panama, on Oct. 11. (Photo: Adri Salido/Getty Images)
Simon Hankinson, a former foreign service officer with the State Department, is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.
The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.
———————————————————
To avoid admitting that President Joe Biden’s own policies are responsible for mass illegal migration, his administration is keen to implicate “climate change” as the root cause instead. Biden has done everything in his power to facilitate unlimited immigration, from setting up overseas “Safe Mobility Offices” to encouraging asylum claims to inventing “lawful pathways” that are really unlawful, using mass immigration parole to bypass requiring a visa for entry into the country. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has shifted all available resources from deterring illegal aliens to instead bringing them into the country.
By releasing thousands of illegal aliens at the border daily and fostering nearly unlimited asylum applications, the Biden administration adds to court backlogs already so long that aliens have de facto amnesty. The small percentage of asylum cases that eventually qualify have been buried by fraudulent and spurious ones. This is all by design. But the Biden administration is hoping to distract from this dismal record by blaming the whole thing on climate change.
The White House’s “Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration” declares “the United States will need to strengthen the application of existing protection frameworks, adjust U.S. protection mechanisms to better accommodate people fleeing the impacts of climate change, and evaluate the need for additional legal protections for those who have no alternative but to migrate.”
That word salad could mean more bogus immigration parole programs and including climate change in the criteria for granting asylum. But blaming illegal mass migration on warmer weather is politics, not science. Linking small changes in annual planetary average temperatures to specific weather patterns is difficult. Blaming weather for individual decisions to illegally come to the United States—often through several safe countries on the way—is not credible.
A recent Migration Policy Institute report notes that “[e]nvironmental issues are generally minor factors in people’s migration decisions, typically far behind economic imperatives, even in highly climate-affected countries.” A report by the Dialogue cites “political crises, economic insecurity, violence, weak social protection systems, COVID-19 contagion, low vaccination rates, and natural disasters” as “factors explaining current migration.” It concludes that “overall, aspirational or poor material conditions in the homeland is an important common denominator.”
A lack of affordable and reliable energy is associated with a lack of access to clean water, adequate medical care, affordable transportation, and economic opportunities, all of which stall human advancement, especially in the most vulnerable countries. Energy, in all its diverse forms, should be harnessed by all societies—because high-income societies are also high-energy societies.
(The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)
In other words, when illegal aliens select the U.S. as their destination, their main reason is to leave poverty and look for a better life either through finding a job or relying on America’s social safety net.
Under U.S. immigration law, being poor or wanting a better job don’t qualify an alien for asylum. To be eligible, applicants have to prove that if returned home, they would be persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. The “particular social group” category, already too broad, was expanded beyond reason by Biden administration guidance to the government staff who decide asylum cases. With the system already overburdened, activists now want to expand the asylum criteria even further.
The New York Times recently reported on the Miskito people of Honduras. Historically poor, subject to hurricanes, and now beset by drug cartels, some of them picked up and left. They didn’t relocate within Honduras or go to the nearest safe countries—Mexico or Guatemala—but trekked 2,500 miles north to the United States. Drawn by Biden’s open border, they now plan to claim asylum based on “extreme weather wrought by climate change,” helped by the National Immigration Project.
But the reality is that America is not to blame for their plight. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have been falling. This is not because of Biden’s massive subsidies to renewable energy and electric vehicles; it’s the fruit of improved technology and investment by the private sector, as well as the conversion to cleaner natural gas.
In Europe, Germany and Britain are crippling their economies and sticking their populations with huge increases in energy costs in the pursuit of lower emissions. Meanwhile, China is building a coal-fired power plant every two weeks and continues to increase emissions year over year. India isn’t far behind.
This doesn’t stop the global Left from using climate change as an irrefutable catchall cause for illegal immigration, for which they blame only the developed world. Beijing wins again as mass migration based on fraud only targets desirable countries like the U.S. Other than maybe North Koreans, no one is lining up to get into China.
The plight of the Miskito, and of hundreds of millions of people across this crowded planet, can inspire our sympathy and aid, but it is not grounds for asylum. If we wish to remain a stable and prosperous society in an uncertain world, it can never be grounds for asylum.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that “[p]rojected population displacements by 2050 in Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia due to climate change, rang[e] from 31 million to 143 million people.” To call that range “ballpark” would be generous, but there is no doubt that millions will continue to migrate, for various reasons, in the future. That doesn’t make it the duty of every desirable country on earth to surrender control over its borders, identity, and destiny in response.
Who comes to the United States, how many, and where from is a decision for American voters, not for globalist climate crusaders. The U.S. should offer our expertise and example to help countries overcome the challenges of a changing planet, but we can’t be the world’s default refuge.
Our current asylum system was designed for the 1950s, with the fresh memory of Jews fleeing Nazi extermination and dissidents fleeing communist tyranny. This humanitarian program was not intended for, and it has been destroyed by, mass migration for largely economic reasons. The result is engendering political pushback across the developed world. The U.S. needs to rethink the Refugee Act of 1980, which defines who qualifies for asylum. Climate change should be explicitly excluded, and the “particular social group” category eliminated or, at the very least, tightly restricted.
Under the Biden administration, it doesn’t really matter to the Miskito or other asylum claimants how unsound the basis of their claim is. They’ll be allowed to remain in the United States and work while they wait out a many-years-long court process. That’s ridiculous, and it’s why, in May of this year, the House of Representatives passed needed reform of the asylum criteria that would require people to wait for their asylum decision outside the U.S.
In the national interest, the Senate and Biden should accept these necessary reforms and abandon the canard that climate change justifies the president’s failed immigration policies.
Migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border on Nov. 12, 2023, in Jacumba, California. (Photo: Nick Ut/Getty Images)
Federal authorities recorded 240,988 migrant encounters at the southern border in October, sustaining record highs seen under the Biden administration, according to Customs and Border Protection data released Tuesday. The number of encounters along the southern border in September totaled 269,735, marking the highest month on record. CBP recorded 232,963 and 183,479 encounters in August and July, respectively, according to agency data.
“In conjunction with our resumption of removal flights to Venezuela consistent with delivering consequences for those who cross the border unlawfully, CBP saw a 65 percent decrease in southwest border encounters of Venezuelans in the second half of October, compared to the second half of September,” Troy A. Miller, senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said in a statement regarding the new data.
“In October, CBP also saw an overall decrease of 14 percent between ports of entry, as well as an overall decrease of family units. We continue to enhance our border security posture and remain vigilant,” Miller added.
The number of encounters of illegal migrants exceeded 188,000 at the southern border in October, while the number of migrants encountered at ports of entry surpassed 52,000, according to CBP data. Of those processed at ports of entry, 44,000 used CBP One, a phone application the Biden administration allows migrants to use to book appointments to enter the U.S.
“CBP’s narcotics seizures in October highlight our work on the frontline in the fight against fentanyl and other dangerous substances entering the United States—but we need more resources to sustain and increase these efforts. The President’s supplemental budget request is critical to funding the frontline, and would provide much-needed personnel, resources, and technology to go after transnational criminal organizations, enhance border security—including the enforcement of consequences for those who break the law—and support state and local partners, all to keep Americans safe,” Miller added.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
NEWSMAX
News, Opinion, Interviews, Research and discussion
Opinion
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
You Version
Bible Translations, Devotional Tools and Plans, BLOG, free mobile application; notes and more
Political
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
NEWSMAX
News, Opinion, Interviews, Research and discussion
Spiritual
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
Bible Gateway
The Bible Gateway is a tool for reading and researching scripture online — all in the language or translation of your choice! It provides advanced searching capabilities, which allow readers to find and compare particular passages in scripture based on
By Jon Tester Fox News | Published January 25, 2024 5:00am EST
What Did You Say? 
You must be logged in to post a comment.