Commentary: Democrat mayors finally acknowledge illegal immigration crisis

The Biden administration started this cruel process on Inauguration Day with its haphazard policies.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser in Freedom Plaza in 2016. (Lorie Shaull/Flickr)

Suddenly, liberal mayors from large cities are border hawks. Well, not quite.

But after dismissing and ignoring concerns for 18 months, they are bemoaning how illegal immigrants are now harming their public welfare systems.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recently complained that 6,000 recent border-crossers who arrived in the nation’s capital on buses provided by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are taking social service resources from needy Americans. What jingoism!

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has similar gripes. He believes the thousands who boarded northeast-bound busses are flooding shelters that U.S. citizens need. And yes, that dastardly Abbott should be blamed.

Did these coastal mayors think these people only should go to the country’s “interior”?

Anyone want to bet that mayors, governors, hospital executives, and especially school administrators will quickly join Adams and Bowser’s chorus, since there could be federal government money for them?

The new troubles for America’s failing urban cesspools are not the fault of the popular two-term Texas governor.

The Biden administration started this cruel process on Inauguration Day with its haphazard policies.

The removal of detention guidelines and gutting of important immigration laws unleashed a record-setting migration crisis, with rates even beyond those of our ancestors at Ellis Island more than a century ago.

At least a million border-crossers have fanned out across the fruited plain during the last 18 months, with millions more undoubtedly coming in the next two years, should Team Biden refuse to seriously combat the issue.

After illegal crossers ford the Rio Grande and are processed by Border Patrol, they do board taxpayer-funded buses and planes to New York and Washington, but also to California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, Utah, and elsewhere. More than 15,000 unaccompanied minors crossed the southern border in June, and we are well on pace to surpass last fiscal year’s 150,000.

Most are released with a promise to some day apply for asylum, but few will actually seek it. The caseload backup of nearly 2 million has a waiting list of several years. Biden and inept DHS Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas long ago abandoned any legal processes and ended deportation, except for terrorists. Over 50 people from terror watchlists have been caught crossing the border in 2022, more than the last five years combined.

Democrat-run cities are now stuck with millions of illegals who cannot support themselves, and whose children will attend public schools, will not have medical insurance, and will likely never voluntarily return home once their asylum claims fail.

So mayors have new burdens thanks to the Biden administration.

When school resumes, superintendents may need additional personnel and facilities to handle the influx of new children. Parents with school-age kids across America will face higher tax rates to pay for new school expansions and additional bilingual teachers. Hospitals will require more administrators and emergency rooms will be backed up. It’s not cruel or bigoted to note this; it’s reality.

But politicians, teachers, parents, and anyone acting as if they didn’t know should not condemn a noble Republican governor; their antipathy should go toward Biden and his vice president’s apathy.

 

A.J. Kaufman

A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.