On Super Tuesday, Immigration Takes Center Stage

By Joe Guzzardi
March 2, 2016
 
Super Tuesday has come and gone with the results along predictable lines. In both the Republican and Democratic primaries, immigration was a key subject. Democrats want to increase immigration and pass amnesty legislation while Republicans opt for less immigration, and tighter border control.
 
But even among moderate Democrats, the consensus is that ever-increasing immigration, both legal and illegal, with its direct effect on jobs, schools, social services, population growth and yes, terrorism too, needs to be reconsidered.
 
Coincidentally, two stories broke on Super Tuesday that show why when it comes to immigration Americans are so frustrated with the Obama administration. First, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that it’s preparing to accommodate a new wave of at least 75,000 more unaccompanied illegal alien Central American minors. 
 
The new influx of minors shouldn’t have caught CBP unprepared. In fiscal year 2014, CBP apprehended 68,541 unaccompanied minors and another 68,554 so called family units. Apprehension totals dropped in fiscal year 2015 to 39,970 unaccompanied minors and 39,838 family units, fewer but still a significant total. Moreover, the surge began at least five years ago with no serious efforts made to deter it.
 
Accordingly, CBP commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske asked the House Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Homeland Security for another round of additional funding for “the care and custody” of the illegal immigrants. Among the possibilities for care and custody are housing the migrants at six military bases across the United States even though those are locations are engaged in classified training and cyber warfare activities that should not be distracted by sheltering alien detainees.
 
The second breaking story involved the three-year pattern of border patrol agents turning Central American illegal immigrant over to Health and Humans services, a violation of their sworn duty to uphold immigration laws. The agents have also been asked to, against their will and in direct violation of their job description, to carry out President Obama’s revived “catch and release program” that orders them to set free apprehended aliens. Obama reinstated catch and release because of the embarrassment created when 70 percent of Central Americans don’t show up for their immigration court hearings to determine whether they can legally remain or must be returned.
 
Last month Brandon Judd, National Border Patrol Council president, testified to the House Judiciary Immigration and Border Security subcommittee that his agents object to catch and release because it enables criminals including transnational gangs like MS-13, and endangers national security. According to Judd, illegal immigrants without serious criminal convictions know that if they claim that they came to the U.S. before 2014 by claiming they came before 2014, even without showing proof, they’ll be immediately released. Kerlikowske’s response to Judd’s reasonable objection was that NBPC didn’t have “any idea about what’s going on” and agents who don’t want to carry out their superior’s orders should “look for another job.” Little wonder that border patrol morale is low and turn over high.
 
The result of Obama’s willful refusal to enforce immigration law, and the defiance of unlawful Central American nationals is that since 2012, America’s cities have been forced against their will to take in nearly a quarter of a million illegal immigrants without the funding to provide for them. Some Obama supporters call the ongoing border surges the new normal, a concept citizens reject. Americans are rightfully fed up with immigration via presidential edict that threatens sovereignty and rewards illegal crossers.