The Biden administration is preemptively trying to blame Republicans for a future “surge” in illegal aliens crossing the border.
To hear the administration tell it, if a lawsuit by a number of GOP states against its CHNV parole program is successful, the border will be flooded (not that it’s not already flooded — see tweet below).
NEW: WaPo reports illegal crossings shot up again in August, w/ Border Patrol apprehending 177,000 migrants, including the highest number of families ever recorded. Illegal crossings have now risen 30% two months in a row, as WH claims “stopping the flow”.https://t.co/ta6ckz1MiZ
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 1, 2023
Launched earlier this year in preparation for the end of Title 42, the parole program allows up to 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan (CHNV) nationals to be “flown into the U.S., paroled and allowed to apply for work permits if they meet certain conditions,” according to Fox News. Otherwise, they’re sent packing to Mexico.
Conservatives believe the parole program is patently illegal and thus filed suit against it immediately after its launch.
“A coalition of 20 states and a top conservative legal group are suing the Biden administration over its recently expanded humanitarian parole program that allows tens of thousands of migrants from designated countries a month into the U.S., arguing that the program is unlawful,” Fox News reported in January.
“The lawsuit, filed by Texas and America First Legal in the Southern District of Texas, is joined by 19 additional states who are seeking to block the Biden administration’s parole program, which allow up to 30,000 migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela into the U.S. each month,” the outlet added.
Fast-forward to this week when arguments challenging the policy were finally heard in federal court.
The Biden Department of Homeland Security subsequently tried to push back on the arguments by submitting a filing dubiously claiming that if the parole program is terminated, there’ll be another surge at the border …
Except there’s already been a surge at the border since the day President Joe Biden took office.
This is Baghdad Bob level nonsense. There have been continuously increasing border crossings since Jan 2021. Migrants do perceive the border is open, but it has little to do with Republicans or recent court decisions. https://t.co/HIE71uVI4g pic.twitter.com/7Fz6W61G9T
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 21, 2023
“If DHS cannot continue to provide lawful processes for CHNV nationals to come directly to the United States, Mexico will almost certainly no longer accept the removal of those who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States at the border,” Blas Nuñez-Neto, a top DHS border official, said in the filing.
“Given the continuing difficulty that the United States has in effectuating removals of CHNV nationals to their home countries, DHS anticipates that the lack of lawful processes or meaningful consequence will again lead to a surge in migration from CHNV nationals,” he added.
But there are a couple of problems with this farfetched theory. For one, barely any illegal migrants are currently being sent back in the first place.
“Of Venezuelans, 43,160 cases were adjudicated between October and April, with 42,071 approved and just over 1,000 denied parole. Of Haitian migrants, 29,062 cases were considered, and just 360 were rejected. Rejections of Nicaraguans and Cubans were also around 300, while 13,457 and 19,637, respectively, were approved,” Fox News notes.
Secondly, the parole program didn’t exist during the Trump administration, yet the administration still managed to effectively seal the border and slow border crossings to a trickle. How? Using a carrot-and-stick strategy.
“Under pressure from President Trump’s tariffs threat, Mexico reached a deal with the United States on June 7 to step up immigration enforcement and to take in more migrants waiting for their U.S. asylum hearings,” NPR reported in the summer of 2019.
The strategy worked.
“We achieved what critics said was impossible. Illegal family #’s plummeted. Those who came were all promptly removed,” according to Trump-era immigration official Stephen Miller.
All Biden had to do was continue these policies, but instead he reversed everything and implemented his own programs and policies such as the CHNV parole program.
We achieved what critics said was impossible. Illegal family #’s plummeted. Those who came were all promptly removed. When pandemic hit, we instituted T42 rapid returns, and brought in-custody numbers to all-time lows. This was the impeccable operation Biden inherited. (10/11)
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) March 29, 2021
Not surprisingly, the reversal of Trump-era policies and installation of Biden open-border policies has led to incessant surges across the border, with thousands of illegals entering the U.S. on any given day.
One possible way to stop this madness would be by forcing these Biden policies to be reversed. And that’s exactly what conservatives hope will happen with the CHNV parole program lawsuit.
“If we prevail on the merits, as we are confident that we must, it creates the possibility that the whole entire artifice of Biden’s parole scheme could come tumbling down,” Miller told Fox News last month.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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