The Biden administration is frantic to deal with its “non-crisis” at the border, as the figures for March show apprehensions at the border for that month were at a 20-year high. Border facilities operated by the CBP, such as the one at Donna, Texas, are crammed to the gills with migrants–men, women, and thousands of young men of late-teen-age known as “children.” New tents are being regularly added there to deal with the constant influx, but it’s a losing struggle.
The problem is with getting the migrants discharged and transferred out of these facilities, which is becoming more and more difficult. Asylum seekers by law have to have their claims adjudicated, which can take months or even years. In the meantime, the applicants have to be somewhere.
During the bad old days of the Trump administration, they could be sent back to the country that most recently had them: Mexico. However, to show how much he cares, the new president said goodbye to all that and substituted Remain in Mexico with Stay Here Somewhere.
To ease the overwhelming crunch on the border, officials have to get the migrants out of places like Donna to somewhere else. They have consequently begun shipping people–by bus and often by all-expenses-paid airplane–off to here and there without the slightest idea of who they are or whether they might be on a terror watch list or something.
Rep. John Katko (R-NY) thinks this might constitute a security risk. After returning from a visit to Donna this week, he sat down for an interview with the New York Post, saying:
You get on the plane, they don’t have ID to get past security. They come across the border, they don’t have it. They say their name is Joe Smith, they have no way of verifying whether it’s Joe Smith, they have no way of verifying whether or not they may even be on the terror watch list, because we don’t have any of the background information. These people are getting out of planes, we’re paying for tickets, don’t know who they are, don’t know whether they’re dangerous or not and they’re going to these cities. . . .
While American citizens and legal visitors are required to display their identification papers to the TSA and others at any point while in the airline system, not so for illegal migrants. They have no documents. Instead, the government just puts them on board and hopes for the best. (They do sometimes supply the non-English-speaking with a cute little note requesting assistance, complete with smiley. See above.)
Then there’s Covid-19, caused by the Wuhan virus out of China. Those migrants that Katko saw at Donna had not been tested for the disease, because the facility is crammed so full there would be no way to quarantine them anyway. Just as with the potential security risks, the possibly infected get the heave-ho when the opportunity arises, with Biden and company again hoping for the best.
The Post spoke with Homeland Security and the TSA about Katko’s charges. The DHS spokesman insisted they employ “rigorous screening” to prevent national security risks from entering the country, and the TSA rep said all travelers are “required to provide proper documentation.” Yeah, right.
For more, see the NY Post.