There’s no question that President Joe Biden has a full-blown border crisis on his hands.
It is one that he and his administration aren’t taking seriously.
The result has been border states such as Texas taking matters into their own hands, with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordering buoy barriers to be placed along stretches of the Rio Grande along with more barbed wire placed nearby on land to discourage illegal crossings.
Another thing Abbott has been doing for the last year-and-a-half is authorizing the busing of illegal immigrants who are overwhelming border towns to Democrat-run cities like New York City and Chicago.
In the past, these cities have boasted about being “sanctuary cities” where illegal immigrants could come, receive shelter, and be protected from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as well as the Dept. of Homeland Security.
But not long after they started arriving en masse on those buses, those same Democrats began changing their tunes on being so welcoming and accommodating. New York City Mayor Eric Adams lashed out at not only the influx of illegal immigrants but also Abbott, who he has accused of treating the illegals like human pawns.
Abbott, with the full understanding in mind that open borders Democrats can’t truly experience what it’s like to be overrun by the illegal immigrants they claim to support until they experience it themselves, responded accordingly by continuing the busing plan, which has also included occasional bus stops in front of the Washington, D.C. home of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is Biden’s border czar.
2024 GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken a similar approach after becoming fed up over reports that the Biden administration was flying illegal immigrants from the Texas border into Florida in the dead of night when they thought no one would be paying attention.
Well, they were, and DeSantis responded by busing and flying them out of his state to blue states and cities like Martha’s Vineyard, which prompted an outcry from the same Democrats who previously rolled out the red carpet for them.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has been trying to elevate his national profile for a likely future presidential run, even went so far as to accuse DeSantis of “kidnapping” after planeloads of illegal immigrants were flown to Sacramento by DeSantis.
In the midst of all the bluster about Abbott’s and DeSantis’ actions from these Democratic leaders has come an acknowledgment: The realization that the current system under Biden is unsustainable and that there must be a better system in place not only to discourage surges to the southern border but also to handle the influxes when they do happen so that it’s not just a handful of border towns and states sharing the responsibility.
“…(T)he federal government’s lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said in a letter written to Biden last week.
“There is much more that can and must be done on a federal level to address a national humanitarian crisis that is currently being shouldered by state and local governments without support,” Pritzker also noted.
Interestingly enough, that is exactly what Abbott and DeSantis have been saying to Biden since day one of his presidency. But now that it’s Democrats who are kicking up a fuss about the border crisis, the Biden administration is suddenly listening, with a recent announcement on a restarting of building the border wall that Biden said on the campaign trail in 2020 would not happen on his watch.
For Abbott and DeSantis, it’s mission accomplished. This doesn’t mean the border crisis is over, not by a long shot, but better late than never.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection