Two months ago I wrote that the United States has a problem at our southern border and that it paled in comparison to the problems faced by the people daring the treacherous trip across the challenging Rio Grande, in the back of a semi-trailer, or in the trunk of a car.
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, the number of undocumented immigrant crossings at the southwest border for fiscal year 2022 topped 2.76 million, breaking the previous annual record by more than 1 million.
The undocumented immigrants are costing Texas alone nearly $1 billion each year. Our southern border states are running out of facilities and money.
They sounded the alarm and asked for help from the federal government – they got none. So, they began busing them to sanctuary cities in other states. Officials in the receiving states and cities welcomed the immigrants but railed at the officials of the southern border-states and called their actions "political grandstanding."
It may be a political grandstanding but it is also a practical move. You can only dip the bucket so many times into the well before it runs dry. Those states are running out of money and resources.
As I wrote before, when the federal government was transporting immigrants to other states in the middle of the night, using clandestine flights, it wasn't a big deal because, well, it was clandestine and not widely publicized.
Now that it's publicized, people scream that it's "political grandstanding." No it isn't. People need help and that's the reality.
New York City has received around 17,000 undocumented immigrants. The mayor has declared a state of emergency and estimates the cost to the Big Apple to be about $1 billion. But, he too says it's political grandstanding by the officials of the border-states. Well, they have your attention now, don't they? I guess it worked.
Somebody needs to help because the Feds don't believe that it's a crisis.
If it's not a crisis, why is it costing billions of dollars, creating dangerous conditions for the immigrants, and filling the pockets of drug cartels and those who profit in human trafficking? If it's not a crisis, why are officials shading their opportunity to help by throwing the blanket of hate over those who asked for help and didn't get it?
The latest busload of undocumented asylum seekers landed in Philadelphia on Wednesday. According to Mayor Jim Kenney, they will be welcomed and assistance provided. Then he too poisoned his comments by condemning the Texas governor who sent them here, using the catchphrase of all the others: "it's political grandstanding".
To all the officials using the catchphrase, keep saying it often enough and the Feds will keep thinking that there is no crisis and this circle of ignorance will just keep going round-and-round...
Then tell that to the families of the nearly 900 people who died trying to cross the border this year.
The latest bus stopped in Philadelphia.
Officials in the border-states are experiencing the crisis; officials in the sanctuary cities are slowly beginning to experience that as well. Now, how do we wake up the officials in Washington, D.C. to do something about it?