President Biden’s border betrayal

Without borders, we don’t have nations—and we don’t have safety for people we love. As an Egyptian immigrant to the United States, I value and cherish everything this great nation has to offer, yet there can hardly be a more disturbing scene to me than that which is happening on the southern border of the United States.

Everyone can watch videos of floods of humans crossing to the United States and doing so illegally. Still, the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insists, “The president has done more to secure the border and to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else. He really has.” This is a misrepresentation. President Joe Biden seems to have been occupied with other priorities—including safeguarding Ukraine’s borders against Russian assault—rather than safeguarding our own border.

Billionaire Elon Musk traveled to the Texas-Mexico border and recorded the situation at Eagle Pass, Texas. What his video showed was absolute chaos. Musk posted his visit on X (formally known as Twitter) and labeled it an “unfiltered” view of the situation—a 15-minute video which received more than 100 million views. In commenting on the video, Reuters reports, “Musk’s visit came as thousands of migrants have ventured to northern Mexico in recent days on freight trains and buses, then crossed the U.S. border into Texas, Arizona and California in an upswing in arrivals of people seeking asylum in the United States.”

In the video, while floods of people appear crossing the border unchecked and unquestioned, Musk speaks with Rolando Salinas, the mayor of Eagle Pass, who explains that a massive and unprecedented number of unvetted people crossed the border in previous weeks. This number, says Salinas, exceeds the population of Eagle Pass itself. Other officials speak in the same video and affirm that the crossers are not just women and children but also apparent criminals with clearly marked gang tattoos. In a concerned voice, the officials tell us that these criminals are not only from Mexico. Anyone from anywhere can simply travel to countries in South America and make their way unstopped through the open border to the United States.

This chaos is unprecedented in recent history and is clearly a result of bad policies—and most are intentionally bad. Whether under Clinton, Bush, Obama, or Trump, there has never been an open border such as we have under the Biden administration. This policy is a textbook for disaster and should qualify as betrayal of the basic commitment of elected officials to safeguard our nation.

Under the pressure caused by the circulation of Musk’s video, the Biden administration was forced to begin following in Trump’s footsteps and build more southern border wall. Biden had long claimed that Trump’s wall was a waste of money and many on the left claimed the idea of a wall is racist. With Biden’s announcement to build the wall, his administration is now under fire from his own party.

The fact is that some politicians openly endorse open border policies. In today’s America, it’s significantly challenging to immigrate legally, while relatively easy to cross the southern border illegally and then live, work, and even get benefits paid by U.S. taxpayers.

Last year the U.S. Department of Justice revealed a plot by an ISIS soldier to assassinate former President George W. Bush in Dallas. The terrorist planned to get four ISIS Iraqi soldiers to America by obtaining tourist visas to Mexico then entering the United States across the southern border.

That’s one example, but it is revealing and isn’t random. In fiscal year 2023 alone, U.S. Border Patrol reported apprehending 151 migrants who had matched profiles on the terrorism watchlist but had crossed the U.S. border. This week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that four Iranians have been apprehended trying to cross the border this month.

Illegal immigration should be opposed while legal immigration should be encouraged and granted through right and proper processes. We need a rigorous system that welcomes hard-working, ambitious, and skilled persons to come live and work in this great nation. Allowing anyone on earth to come and cross the border, unchecked and unquestioned, creates danger and distrust in every part of the country. A nation without borders will not long survive.