The crisis on the southern border

The crisis on the southern border blew up into a major catastrophe for the Biden administration on June 27. At approximately 6 p.m. local time on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, a worker in a nearby building heard screaming coming from a cargo van that was parked nearby with its rear door partially open. After further examination he observed human bodies lying dead on the floor.

Sixty-two people were found in the sweltering trailer with 48 already dead. Sixteen more were taken to nearby hospitals for medical care. As of July 3, the death toll had mounted to 53.

Something like this was bound to happen when illegal crossings of our southern border are at an all time high and continue to grow. According to Borderreport.com, migrant encounters on the border topped 2 million in 2021 and are on pace to meet or exceed that number in 2022.

Yet it's amazing the Biden Administration continues arguing the border is closed. Even after the horrifying find in San Antonio, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stuck firmly to the party line during a press gaggle on Air Force One on the way to Madrid, Spain. She said “We're focused on continuing our historic actions to disrupt dangerous smuggling networks, including through a new anti-smuggling campaign that just in the first two months resulted in over 1,800 arrests. But the fact of the matter is the border is closed.”

If the border is closed, where are these 1,800 smugglers and their victims coming from? If press secretary Jean-Pierre's statement is accurate, why then is the Washington Post reporting in March of this year, “When the border patrol runs out of capacity and agents are too overwhelmed to process migrants and conduct patrols, authorities have reverted to releasing large numbers of migrants, asking them to report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)”

Asking them to report? Does anyone actually believe 99% of the migrants crossing our southern border ever take time to look up an ICE official in Davenport, Iowa or Wahoo, Nebraska? What makes this entire scenario even more ridiculous, is that President Biden has done his best to stop ICE agents from doing their jobs and making arrests of undocumented persons.

Thomas Horton, who served as acting ICE director under former President Trump says: “The men and women of ICE, they took an oath to enforce immigration laws. It's unfortunate they can't do the job, and it's unfortunate that many criminals are going to be walking the streets of America because this administration simply thinks they're not important enough to take off the streets.”

Luckily sound police work in San Antonio made it possible to arrest the people responsible for this tragedy and they will be held accountable. But how about the next tragedy? And how about deaths caused by Fentanyl coming across the border? Do we even want to go there?

In Tulare County California, two men were arrested for possessing 150,000 Fentanyl pills with a street value of $750,000. The men planned to distribute their product through out the State of Washington. Eighteen hours later they walked free of jail because of a public safety algorithm used in the state. The algorithm looks primarily at criminal histories that makes risk assessments based on whether individuals are likely to be re-arrested, or they'll miss their court date, or if there is a risk for violence. However what the ridiculous algorithm did not take into consideration is that just 2 mg of Fentanyl is lethal, and that the Drug Enforcement Agency reports two out of every five counterfeit pills in the United States contain a lethal dose.

There's little doubt these men have been involved with Fentanyl before when you consider the dollar amount of product they had in their possession. These men are as dangerous as the criminals that placed the San Antonio victims in the trailer. It's time President Biden and Vice President Harris actually go down to the border and spend time with the border guards to see how bad the situation actually is. Because until they do, the safety of every American is at risk.

— This is the opinion of Gerry Feld, whose column is published monthly. He writes about issues from a conservative perspective and is a published novelist.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: The crisis on the southern border