Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have set out a problematic policy during their tenure, essentially giving a free pass to countless illegal border crossers, allowing them to reside in the United States without undergoing sufficient security checks or ‘vetting’. This egregious oversight practically welcomes the unknown, with no clear understanding of who these individuals may be. It’s a reckless approach that has been unwaveringly followed by the Biden-Harris administration for almost four years.
Recent revelations from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general have thrown further light on this issue. The report, titled ‘CBP, ICE, and TSA Did Not Fully Assess Risks Associated with Releasing Noncitizens without Identification into the United States and Allowing Them to Travel on Domestic Flights’, unequivocally exposes the sheer negligence and maladministration of this unchecked policy.
While the stated purpose of the investigation was to scrutinize the challenge of unexamined migrants gaining access to domestic flights, the report dug deeper, questioning why these unvetted individuals were permitted to remain on American soil at all. The unpalatable truth can be found in the cold statistics, which reveal shocking numbers for fiscal year 2023.
According to the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement statistics, more than 3.2 million noncitizens were encountered nationwide, which included over 2.4 million interactions at the Southwest border alone. The protocol for CBP or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers when encountering such individuals is to treat them as applicants for admission, subjecting them to immigration officer inspections.
From this point, provided the inspectors’ findings reveal negative information about the noncitizens, three potential outcomes are in store: 1) denial of admission, 2) detention, or 3) release into the United States pending an immigration hearing or review of their admissibility claims. No matter the outcome, each noncitizen is assigned an ‘A-Number’, an alien registration number used in all subsequent documentation related to them. Yet, a disturbing question arises here.
What happens when an illegal border crosser produces no valid form of identification apart from the freshly minted A-Number handed to them by the U.S. government? Such a scenario unfolds countless times, generating a major loophole in our immigration system.
The report reveals that if noncitizens can’t furnish valid identification documents, they can be denied admission. However, if they claim an intention to apply for asylum or express fear of persecution in their home country, they are referred for a ‘credible fear’ interview. If deemed credible, they can be released into the U.S. to await further hearings. A loophole migrants understand and exploit with unerring accuracy.
Adding to the imprudence, Washington’s directives to border officers allow them the latitude to admit anyone for any reason, regardless of whether they have any idea about the individual’s identity. Equally alarming is that an illegal crosser without any identification can waltz in purely on their word. Not only is such a policy recklessly indifferent to the identity crisis it potentiates, it is also astonishingly naive.
Our government willingly places trust in the self-reported information of these illegal crossers, who have entered the country without any legitimate form of identification. We blindly let them inhabit our country, utterly clueless about their true identities or backgrounds. Is it not risible that documents produced from self-reported data are accepted by TSA, granting the crossers the right to fly on domestic flights?
You may be curious to understand the frequency of this bizarre and insecure policy. The honest answer is, we don’t know. The DHS conveniently doesn’t keep a record of how many non-citizens without valid identification are released into the U.S. Sure enough, DHS simply does not want to know the details.
A paltry study conducted by the inspector general revealed a startling fact. An examination of 53 noncitizens discovered that 13%, or seven individuals, possessed no identification. While this is a small sample size, if we extrapolate these figures in the broader context of the 3.2 million non-citizens encountered in fiscal 2023, we could be looking at a staggering figure of 416,000 people. This is a decidedly conservatively estimated amount of unidentified individuals gaining entry to our country in just one year!
This is nothing short of a scandal, though not entirely unexpected. It was publicly known from their 2020 campaign promises that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris intended to pave the way for illegal crossers to stream into the U.S. uninhibited. Strangely enough, no one seemed surprised when they went ahead and delivered on that promise.
Now, with one eye on potentially running for the presidency, Kamala Harris positions herself as a tough talker about the border. It would be wise to keep this recent inspector general’s report in mind before buying into such posturing.