On Monday, a 23-year-old man from El Salvador who entered the country illegally was arrested for the murder and rape of Maryland’s Rachel Morin, a mother of 5, last summer.
He also allegedly found the time, during his vacation in the United States, to break into the home of and assault a 9-year-old girl and her mother.
A day later, an Ecuadorian migrant who crossed into the country illegally before authorities apprehended and then released him into the country was arrested for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in Queens.
President Biden’s response? To announce what CBS News reported was to “one of the largest immigration relief programs in recent history” for “hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in the country without proper documents” as well as “DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants.”
Former President Donald Trump is on track to complete one of the greatest comebacks in American political history.
Less than four years ago, Trump sicced a mob on the Capitol — and his own vice president — foisting a national embarrassment on the American people.
Now they want him back; and who can blame them?
On almost every conceivable issue, Biden has steered the country in the wrong direction.
In some cases, it almost seems as if the president is thumbing his nose at the public, like when he named a profligate spending bill the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
But no failure stands out quite like the crisis he’s manufactured at the southern border.
Polling indicates that immigration weighs heavily on voters’ minds.
According to Morning Consult, 58% of swing-state voters say immigration will be “very important” in determining their vote, and an additional 28% say it will be “somewhat important.”
And it is the single most critical issue to 15% of the same cohort, placing it behind only the economy.
The most conspicuous evidence of voters’ frustrations, however, comes in the form of a recent CBS News/YouGov survey in which 62% of respondents and 53% of Hispanics expressed support for a “new national program to deport all undocumented immigrants currently living in the US illegally.”
All of a sudden, the median voter is making Donald Trump circa 2015 sound like a squish.
You can thank Biden for that; the crisis at the border and surplus of drugs, crime, and other maladies that stem from it are the direct result of his actions.
Opening the border was a choice, one that seems likely to cost Democrats the White House.
Earlier this month, Biden seemed to have finally come to the realization that his record on the border is a weight around the ankle of his re-election campaign.
He made a big show of signing an executive order on border security — three and a half years into his presidency — that he had previously insisted was not within his power to issue.
Naturally, that was a red herring.
“Yes, he [Biden] is going to limit and restrict asylum to some people who crossed the border illegally in between ports of entry,” acknowledged Fox News’ ace border reporter Bill Melugin. “But he’s going to continue bringing in tens of thousands of migrants per month using this CBP One app and flying them into the country via these parole flights.
“So the illegal-crossing numbers may go down a little bit. But he’s bringing more people into the country through quote unquote, ‘lawful pathways,’ ” he explained.
In other words, Biden’s come-to-Jesus moment on the border was a ruse.
Biden’s focus is where it’s always been: On allowing as many people as possible to circumvent the regular immigration process, consequences be damned.
This is a moral and policy failure that has inflicted suffering upon the citizens Biden is duty-bound to protect.
It’s also a staggering political own goal.
If you suspected that Donald Trump might be your opponent again and believed that he is an existential threat to American democracy, why on God’s green Earth would you hand him so much ammunition to work with on his signature issue?