On the Border Crisis Over Illegal Aliens, ‘I Like Ike’

Biden’s done nothing. Compare him to Eisenhower, who sent a million illegals back to Mexico and got re-elected in a landslide.

AP
President Eisenhower, at the time a candidate, on July 11, 1952, en route to the Republican National Convention at Chicago. AP

For several months, the Washington rumor was that President Biden was going to come out with some strong executive orders to stop the southern border immigration catastrophe.

After denying it for three years, Mr. Biden finally came out and acknowledged that he has Presidential authority to do something about the border. 

President Trump used that authority to develop programs such as “Remain in Mexico” and Title 42. 

Along with a partial completion of the wall, and a tough mobilization of Homeland Security agents, Mr. Trump was able to staunch the flow of illegals.

Mr. Biden has the authority under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president authority to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens.”

Also, there’s the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which added section 287(g) to the Immigration and Nationality Act. 

The gist of this gives ICE, working with local law enforcement partners, the power to identify and remove incarcerated criminal non-citizens.

So far Mr. Biden has done nothing, probably hoping the issue is going to go away. Only it’s not going to go away.

A recent Issues and Insights TIPP poll shows a 58 percent majority favored a wall while a plurality of 42 percent favor deportations to go along with increased border controls.

Most important, 85 percent of Americans want greater enforcement of border laws.  

Mr. Biden has done nothing.

Jason Riley tells us in the Wall Street Journal that Gallup reported immigration as the most important problem facing America for the third consecutive month. That’s the longest stretch for this issue in 24 years.

A Monmouth University poll last February reported that 53 percent of Americans want a wall constructed along the southern border. That’s the first time that number has surpassed 50 percent.

Even when Mr. Trump was president, a slightly lower 44 percent favored the wall. And some history.

Mr. Riley narrates how Governor Warren of California, who was the Governor Abbott of his day according to Mr. Riley, pushed President Eisenhower to launch an operation to stop the invasion of illegals, which was imposing a massive welfare burden on his state.

In mid-1954 within six weeks, more than a million Mexican nationals in California and Texas had been rounded up and forcibly deported.

Two years later, Ike was re-elected in a landslide.

In a Congressional hearing today, the Budget Committee chairman, Jodey Arrington, estimated the cost of Mr. Biden’s illegal invasion to be $150 billion for healthcare, education, and criminal justice.

I’m sure that’s a lowball, because there’s almost no telling how high the cost of criminality and violence around the country and especially in the blue sanctuary states and cities has been.

New York City estimated a $12 billion cost last summer, but that was nearly a year ago. You can be sure the current estimate is much higher.

Additionally, evidence is mounting that Mr. Biden’s illegals, who have been given work permits or even green cards, have been taking jobs away from native-born Americans.

At a minimum, the surge of illegals has reduced wages. With the recent campus riots, the spotlight has temporarily moved away from the open border crisis.

Yet as the polls show, Americans have neither forgotten nor forgiven Mr. Biden’s failure to act.

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.


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