Is America past the breaking point in the migrant crisis?
One Border Patrol sector in Arizona is in a state of upheaval, with agents receiving the go-ahead to allow migrants out onto the streets in the face of overcrowded detainment facilities filled to capacity.
According to Fox News, the Tucson sector has experienced 2,000 illegal border crossings per day for three days, prompting agents to resort to street releases to provide overpacked shelters with relief.
Sources that spoke with Fox News asserted that border authorities have apprehended over 9,000 illegal aliens at the border this week. The number of migrant encounters was 140,000 in June, 180,000 in July, and is expected to surpass 230,000 for August — which would make it the sixth month during this fiscal year that has exceeded the 200,000 mark.
Fox News further reports:
… Border Patrol leadership has set “bookout” targets for sectors amid increasing numbers that are straining capacity. The Aug. 8 email, obtained by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office as part of litigation, says daily encounters “[continue] to surpass the daily permanent bookouts and the in-custody numbers continue to rise creating significant risks to agents and detainees.”
Consequently, the agency proposes “daily bookout targets” per sector “to bring in-custody numbers to manageable levels” based on seven-day averages. It then says that if “consequence pathways” such as expedited removal are not available, then releasing migrants with Notices to Appear (NTA/OR) at a future court date should be used.
A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Border Patrol has “merely directed sectors to process individuals faster into the range of immigration pathways available, in order to address increasing numbers of individuals in custody.”
Per the CBP spokesperson, “These bookouts include processing record numbers of migrants into Expedited Removal and conducting record numbers of removal flights.”
Although it is the Biden administration’s lax border policy that is precipitating the crisis in the first place, the Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned that a “growing” number of individuals on the U.S. terror watchlist have been identified at the border.
This week, DHS released its 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment report. The document reveals that as of July, 160 foreign nationals on the Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS) have “attempted to enter the United States via the southern border this year, most of whom were encountered attempting to illegally enter between ports of entry.”
The number represents a hike from the 100 encounters with those on the watchlist in fiscal year 2022. DHS further stated in the report:
During the next year, we assess that the threat of violence from individuals radicalized in the United States will remain high, but largely unchanged, marked by lone offenders or small group attacks that occur with little warning. Foreign terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS are seeking to rebuild overseas, and they maintain worldwide networks of supporters that could seek to target the Homeland.
Despite this threat, the department said it believes the greater threat is still the illegal drugs produced in Mexico and smuggled into the United States, taking American lives.
The intensity of the issues arising from the border — the drug crisis, the terror threats, the overcrowding in cities coupled with major taxpayer expenditures to house and sustain migrants — has prompted some American lawmakers to advocate military intervention in Mexico to make war on the cartels, which not only produce and sell drugs, but also coordinate illegal crossings at the southern border.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), chairman of the House Task Force to Combat Mexican Drug Cartels, is a leading voice making this push, currently trying to rally bipartisan support for a bill that would authorize the government to deploy the military to “put us at war with the cartels.”
Crenshaw wants U.S. operations in Mexico to mirror those that have been conducted in Colombia, wherein American troops would go on joint missions with Mexican forces and the United States would provide Mexico with close-air support during operations in isolated regions.
Hawkish measures have been gaining support in the Republican Party. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a presidential candidate, said that as commander in chief, he would use drone strikes against the cartels and authorize shooting at illegal border crossers.
“If somebody has a backpack on and they’re breaking through the wall, you know they have hostile intent and you have every right to take action under those circumstances,” DeSantis said in a CBS interview.
Even some Democrats are calling for more abrasive action at the border as they find themselves dealing with the consequences of mass migration. New York Mayor Eric Adams, for example, recently said that “Any [migration] plan that does not include stopping the flow at the border, that’s a failed plan.”
Adams has also said that the migration issue “will destroy New York City.” The same can be said of the country at large.
To learn more about the mass migration crisis, click here.
