This is an unmitigated catastrophe: I’m told thousands of illegal migrants are crossing the border and entering the U.S. It is lawlessness on a grand scale never seen before in the history of this country. It’s human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug trafficking. 

The Mexican drug cartels control the border, not Biden administration officials. They stand by doing nothing. Why? Because theirs is an open-border policy. A so-called human rights policy. A so-called asylum policy.  

Reporter Hillary Vaughn asked Congressman Greg Casar, “Democrats insist that the borders are closed and secure. If this is a closed and secure border, what does an open border look like?” The Democrat replied: “Asylum seekers have a right to seek asylum, just like immigrants have all over for ill throughout our history, and so that we are working to provide legal, safe and orderly immigration. And that’s what we’re working on. Unfortunately, Republicans refuse to actually fix the system and have continuously refused to come up with solutions that actually allow immigrants to migrate in a legal, safe and orderly way. They continue to actually incite these sorts of problems by not creating pathways for people to orderly get in line. They refuse to have those programs. And so that’s part of why we are stuck here today.” 

Sure they are. Sure they are. You know why Democrats are blaming Republicans? Because Republicans won’t agree to this illegal Biden policy of unlimited migration. We have sovereignty laws in this country that the Democrats are breaking on a daily basis.  

So far during the Biden years, at least 6 million illegals have entered the country, not including “getaways.” We’re talking “encounters” or, better put, “apprehensions.” 

But, of course, the apprehended are released into the interior of the country, never to be seen again by the authorities. It’s catch and release, but it ought to be catch and deport. Just ask Mayor Adams of New York City. Or Mayor Johnson of Chicago.  

Here in New York, the border catastrophe is now a city catastrophe, and it’s got the Democrat mayor criticizing the Democrat president. But Mr. Adams wants more money, and that is not the solution.  

The solution is to close the border, and restore policies from the Trump administration that limited illegal immigration to a trickle. Since the expiration of Title 42, the illegal immigrant tide has worsened enormously. The Bidens are out of sight. The homeland security chief is out of sight.  

The latest is these work permits proposed by the Biden administration. At last count, 470,000 Venezuelans alone have been given work permits. Sometimes, they seem to be called ‘temporary protected status,’ but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been turned into babysitters, not law enforcement.  

There’s no telling how many tens and tens of thousands of illegals are coming over the southern border from around the world. Not just Latin America, but Russian-speaking migrants. People from West Africa, and Asia, and even some terrorists. These migrants are bankrupting towns and cities.  

Congressman Mark Green, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has chronicled the taxpayer cost from the illegals. The opioid epidemic has cost well more than $1.5 trillion. Medicaid is spending estimated at more than $7 billion.  

Then, you have housing costs and education costs that are spiraling. Each migrant at New York City could cost the city’s taxpayers $383 per day. Mr. Adams is estimating $12 billion over three years. This is complete lunacy.  

President Trump, in a speech at Dubuque, Iowa, has pledged that he will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, if elected. He cites the Eisenhower model. What was that?  

In 1954, something called “Operation Wetback” was put into place. There was a mass deportation of up to 1.3 million undocumented Mexicans illegally in California, Arizona, and Texas. It had the tacit approval of the Mexican government, labor groups, and Mexican-Americans worried that uncontrolled immigration made the lives of legal immigrants more difficult.  

The attorney general, Herbert Brownell, declared that illegal migrants were “displacing domestic workers, affecting work conditions, spreading disease, and contributing to crime rates.” Sound familiar?  

Seems like the only difference between then and now is the size of the catastrophe. Something’s got to be done here. It’s a major election-year issue, as well as something that affects the economy, depressing wages, and damaging native-born workers.  

Sensible people like myself are all for immigration and its historic contribution to the success of this great country, but it must be legal immigration. That’s the truth of the matter.  

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