The last remaining Trump-era immigration policy holding masses of illegal migrants at bay, known as Title 42, was put to rest last week by the Biden administration. But while there was some initial chaos at the border, it's died down somewhat in the intervening days, leading the corporate liberal media which has been ignoring the border crisis for three years to strike a reassuring tone.
It's a mistake. This is just the beginning of a new crisis, albeit in a slightly different form. This is the lull before the storm, as a new wave of migrants heads through Mexico, which has discontinued its Trump-era policy of preventing Central Americans from crossing into its territory.
There may have been no panic at the border, but that's because the administration has increased the legal routes of immigration available to the millions of migrants making their way to the U.S. The "relative quiet" has allowed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to claim that the administration's policies are "working," but by "working," he doesn't mean that it is keeping illegal immigrants from gaming the system; he means that they are doing so far from the public eye.
The administration is now processing illegal migrants as fast as possible before letting them loose. Biden has opened 100 regional processing centers and is paroling as many as 30,000 illegals posing as asylum seekers a day. Many who might have hesitated to attempt the perilous journey to the border will now no longer have to. Biden has opened the door.
The issue was never whether or not Title 42 would remain in place. The problem is that having come into office pledging a more compassionate approach to illegal immigration and having, by administrative orders and unfair criticism of the Border Patrol, essentially downgraded enforcement of the laws, Biden engendered a massive surge of migration.
The big winners at the border have been the drug cartels who effectively control the Mexican side. Thanks to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's "hugs, not bullets" approach to the criminals, the cartels control the traffic in illegal immigrants and drugs and are managing the flow to Biden's processing centers.
Some corporate media outlets like the New York Times have begun to notice the human cost of illegal immigration, as in a investigative piece about the fate of children who are trafficked over the border and become virtual slaves or are sexually exploited was shocking. But that just skimmed the surface of a humanitarian catastrophe. Lax enforcement of immigration laws has also given a huge boost to the drug cartels' efforts to maintain the traffic in fentanyl that is fueling the American opioid addiction crisis.
This man-made disaster cries out for a tougher response than the administration seems able to muster. Were Biden serious about the problem, he would reinstate Trump's draconian enforcement measures aimed at deterring the flow of illegal migrants and pressuring Mexico to do its part to stop it as well. He should also recognize that America's asylum laws are outdated and that the system is now so overwhelmed by false claims that genuine refugees who truly are in fear for their lives are being prevented from escaping to the United States.
Yet rather than stopping illegal immigration, Biden is content to let millions keep pouring across the border, as long as it doesn't lead to negative stories about the chaos there or the plight of both the migrants and the border communities who are being swamped by them.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.org and a senior contributor to The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
