The hidden costs of Joe Biden’s border crisis

The 1,254-mile U.S.-Mexico border in Texas is the front line of a devastating humanitarian, economic, and national security crisis that is entirely self-inflicted. The Biden administration seems to care little for the astronomical costs associated with it. Americans are paying the price in dollars and lives.

We cannot ignore the reality of the crisis. Fiscal year 2023 smashed the record of annual illegal border crossings, with 2.4 million illegal alien encounters. December 5 set a new single-day record of 12,000 such encounters. But that historic Tuesday is fast becoming an everyday occurrence.

It’s time for American citizens to wake up and realize the power of their vote to end this crisis.

Those of us who live on or near the border have been warning the country for years that what happens at the border does not stay at the border. Every state is becoming a border state.

Texas is doing its part in helping secure the border, and I applaud the state legislature for approving $1.5 billion in funding for border wall construction and policing. But we need the rest of America behind us. If Texas goes, then America goes.

And things aren’t going so great in Texas.

A recent report showed that Texas spent $6.6 billion to educate illegal aliens in Texas public schools during the 2022-23 school year. That was on top of $2.6 billion for security costs and another $1.7 billion for criminal justice costs associated with unlawful migration.

Even as Texas continues to be overwhelmed by these costs, we are starting to see blue cities, such as New York and Chicago, realize the immense financial cost of their sanctimony and indifference toward the border crisis. Citizens and elected leaders are finally becoming outraged by the overwhelming burden of illegal immigrants in their communities.

And while the actual monetary cost is massive, people are realizing there are other kinds of costs to consider, especially when it comes to the safety of their neighborhoods. A year-end report by Immigration and Customs Enforcement found that illegal immigrants arrested by ICE during fiscal year 2020 “had an average of four criminal convictions or pending criminal charges each.”

After three years of permitting the crisis to worsen, who knows what these statistics might be today? But to ask the question is to attack the reigning narrative, so there isn’t much effort made to answer it.

The astronomical number of border encounters is concerning by itself and even more so given the number of criminals and FBI terrorist watch-listers who have been apprehended at the border. It’s even more chilling to consider who might be among the “known gotaways,” estimated to be around 1,000 a day. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has already considered the possibility of Hamas terrorists taking advantage of the open southern border — as so many other terrorists, criminals, and military-aged males from enemy nations already have.

When our border is breached by criminals, it’s border Americans who are overwhelmingly victimized, whether through actual violence and crime or through the fiscal and community burden thrust upon them. But the Biden administration doesn’t seem to care about border Americans. Instead, the administration has gone to court to block Texas from protecting its citizens with floating barriers and directed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to undermine security efforts.

In fact, the Biden administration has sent a clear message to every American citizen, including upstanding legal immigrants like my own parents, that we are not the priority. Instead of securing our nation, our country’s leadership has allocated $113 billion in taxpayer funds to defend Ukraine. Meanwhile, medical care, housing, and support for America’s selfless veterans are taking a back seat to handouts for illegal immigrants.

Perhaps the most devastating price is being paid in lives. The border crisis is a humanitarian crisis, and preventable deaths are a hallmark of the Biden administration’s mismanagement. Our open southern border has fueled a massive increase in drug and human trafficking, risking and taking countless lives across the nation. This past fiscal year, Border Patrol agents seized enough fentanyl to kill the entire U.S. population. And yet overdose deaths soared in 2022 as 109,680 people died from fentanyl, painting a bleak picture for 2023 and beyond.

The crisis is real, severe, and costly. We must elect officials who are strong border advocates, willing to both acknowledge and address the many facets of the open border crisis. It’s time for American citizens to wake up and realize the power of their vote to end this crisis. Recognize that Democrat politicians don’t put America or her people first and stop voting them into office. Citizens must take responsibility and force the necessary change to protect our nation.