by Hans von Spakovsky:
“You’d have to be detached from reality to deny that we now face a crisis at the border. Among the tens of thousands of people entering our country illegally are dangerous criminals, drug smugglers, sex traffickers and human smugglers. In the last fiscal year alone, fentanyl smuggling has increased 73 percent. The drug is now the leading cause of overdose deaths in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that criminal organizations make $2.5 billion annually from human smuggling. In the 2018 fiscal year, the Border Patrol stopped 17,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records and apprehended 6,000 members of MS-13 and other violent gangs.
As the president mentioned in his State of the Union address, DHS has arrested more than a quarter-million illegal immigrants in the last two years. They were accused or convicted of over 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes and 4,000 murders. The president has correctly pointed out that migrant caravans — something not seen before — are overwhelming our border security system. Last year, 60,000 unaccompanied children and 161,000 families arrived at the border.
President Trump’s emergency proclamation sums up the situation this way: the southern border has become the site of ‘large-scale unlawful migration’ and is ‘a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics.’ That’s not a political statement. It’s a statement of fact.”
