President Trump signed a memo yesterday alerting State and Homeland Security they have 120 days to come up with measures to address visa overstays, a large part of the illegal immigration problem facing the country. Within the frameworks of the current system, there’s no viable way to prevent people from staying in the country often they travel here on a temporary basis.

“We have laws that need to be followed to keep Americans safe and to protect the integrity of a system where, right now, there are millions of people who are waiting in line to come to America to seek the American Dream,” Trump said.

In 2018 alone, an estimate 415,000 people have remained in the country beyond what their visas allowed.

Opinion

The problem with a leaky dam is that you have to plug all the holes or the problem will keep getting worse. All of the focus for the past few months has been on the southern border because it’s the most visible hole in the system, but an argument can be made that the less visible visa overstay problem is actually bigger.

While a majority of those crossing the southern border illegally are from Mexico and Central America, there are people from across the world who use the porous border to sneak into the country. But with the visa program, a larger percentage of the people coming in and never leaving are from countries that have people who pose real threats to our security. It can be argued that from a terrorism-prevention perspective, addressing the visa overstay aspect of the problem is more important.

There’s another important angle to consider politically. As long as the focus by the administration is on the southern border, detractors of plans for the border wall and other security measures will point to visa overstays as an issue that remains unaddressed. They often argue that the President wants his “big, beautiful wall” as a symbolic tribute to bigotry but won’t look at the other aspects of the issue. Now, those arguments can be debunked.

Quote

“Officials will target nations that have overstay rates greater than 10%. Those include Afghanistan, Angola, Bhutan, Burundi, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Georgia, Laos, Liberia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen, according to the most recent Department of Homeland Security data.” – Rob Crilly

Final Thoughts

Illegal immigration is a huge problem for America and it’s getting worse. It must be addressed holistically, and visa overstays have been ignored for far too long. This is a powerful move by the administration to fix the problem.

Democrats have been caught in a feedback loop for months over border security. They can’t reconcile their narrative with the reality at the border, yet they continue to repeat the same talking points for leftist media to regurgitate to the masses. But one look at the cost of diapers and other baby supplies should be enough to alert people that the border crisis is real and getting worse every day.

According to a Yuma Sector report, CBP is on track to pay over $1.2 million for diapers, formula, and other baby supplies due to the rising number of illegal immigrant and asylum-seeking migrant families crossing in the region. Last year, baby expenses totaled around $300,000, marking a cost increase that has quadrupled year-over-year.

That doesn’t take into account the multitude of families who are released to the interior where the baby expenses are paid for using other means.

The left may be able to play “hammer the narrative” by spinning the media in their favor based solely on their collective hatred for President Trump, but numbers don’t lie and neither do the CBP reports. They’ve done everything they can to ring the alarm bells, but DC continues to stick its head in the sand. There’s always a more important topic to cover. Horror stories at the border have become so commonplace that many have been desensitized to them.

Slowly but surely, the left is winning the narrative battle by making people yawn every time the border crisis is brought to their attention.

America needs to address this problem immediately. There should be nothing higher on the agenda of lawmakers on Capitol Hill than to get more agents to the border, better technology, more beds, better supplies, a wall, and better laws with fewer loopholes through which illegal aliens and asylum-seeking migrants can wiggle their way into staying in the country indefinitely without going through the proper legal channels.

It isn’t just about the exploding diaper costs, though. There’s a negative trickle down effect that’s at play here helping dangerous people cross the border unnoticed. Every agent that’s made to act like a daycare employee for migrant children is an agent who’s not stopping drug smugglers and gang members from crossing illegally in the dead of night. Every agent who’s forced to be a paperwork clerk to the masses of migrants signing up for their pass to the interior – aka waiting for an asylum hearing – is an agent who could be stopping terrorists from coming into the country to wage war against American citizens.

The border situation is so far beyond a disaster it’s impressive how neglectful the media and Democrats have been able to be. This level of denial is unprecedented in American politics. Meanwhile, our sovereignty is slipping away.

If the southern border of the United States was properly secured by the government, there would be no need for armed militia to patrol it. If you have any argument you perceive as valid that contradicts this claim, please feel free to express it. I’d love to hear it.

But there won’t be valid arguments against this claim because the claim is purely logical. It’s easy for politicians on both sides of the aisle to scream about armed militia detaining illegal immigrants and asylum-seeking migrants crossing the border, but their screams are irrelevant as long as the borders are so porous, the laws are so restrictive in addressing illegal immigrants, and the border patrol is forced to be stretched so thin by the sheer numbers of people crossing over.

Following the arrest of Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, also known as Johnny Horton Jr, a spotlight has finally been placed on United Constitutional Patriots and similar militia groups. His arrest may be on the record as happening because he is a felon who was found in possession of a firearm and ammunition, but the actual reason he was arrested is because his organization was noted for their apprehension and holding of illegal immigrants. They and others have been patrolling the border in search of those who have crossed over illegally, knowing he CBP is overwhelmed.

I would love to have a situation in which border patrol had plenty of men, the border wall was build, technology was improved, resources were properly allocated, and laws were changed to plug the loopholes currently being abused by illegal immigrants and asylum-seeking migrants. But we don’t have that situation, and while I’m not crazy about an armed militia patrolling the border, I also can’t blame them. This is their country. It’s our country. This nation is supposed to be sovereign, but if the government is unwilling to take the proper actions necessary to defend our sovereignty, where does that leave us?

If the border were properly secured, armed militia like the United Constitutional Patriots would have no reason to patrol it. But the border isn’t secure and many feel the only recourse is to do it themselves. Can you blame them?