THE BORDER GETS WORSE AND WORSE. These days, the Biden White House talks a lot about the border. At press briefings, there are many questions about the border. But it’s the Russia-Ukraine border. Meanwhile, the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border is deteriorating daily.
Two new developments. One, we are learning more about the administration’s covert effort to relocate thousands of illegal border-crossers — single, adult males, not families — into the nation’s interior. We’ll talk about that today. And tomorrow, the second development — new information about the changing makeup of the thousands of people crossing the border illegally each month.
First, the relocation effort. Last week, Fox News broadcast body camera footage from security officers at New York’s Westchester County Airport, about 30 miles outside Manhattan. It was the middle of the night. An unmarked passenger jet had just landed, and a steady stream of single, adult men came down the plane’s steps. They were accompanied by federal contractors.
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Alarmed, one of the security officers approached one of the federal contractors. “You’re on a secure facility here, and we don’t really know anything, and we’re in charge of security,” he said. “So, hence we’re having a problem here.”
“A lot of this is just down-low stuff that we don’t tell people,” the contractor said. “Because what we don’t want to do is attract attention. We don’t want the media. Like, we don’t even know where we’re going when they tell us.”
“I get the whole secrecy and all this,” the officer said. “But this is even above my pay grade.”
“What’s the big secret?” the contractor asked. “Everybody knows it’s happening.”
No, not everyone knows it is happening. Earlier, in Texas, Fox News’s Bill Melugin witnessed bus after bus of illegal border-crossers being readied for flights further into the U.S. “Adult migrants have their chains and cuffs removed as they’re released from ICE custody in Brownsville today,” Melugin reported. “The men were then escorted into a parking garage where a black tarp was set up to obstruct public view, and they were discreetly taken away by a nongovernmental organization.” The operation has turned ICE into an “unofficial travel coordination agency,” one ICE source told Fox News.
You’ll be shocked to learn that the Biden White House does not want to talk about it. Last week, Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, “Why is it that large numbers of single, adult men are being released into the United States just hours after being apprehended at the southern border?”
Psaki feigned ignorance — “I’m not sure the specifics of what you’re referring to” — and then explained that one way the administration deals with single adults who cross the border illegally is “an alternative to detention program in the interior of the United States. Sometimes that means moving migrants to other parts of the United States to move to different detention facilities, where they wait for the next steps in the immigration process, such as a court hearing, and are required to check in with a local ICE office.”
Doocy noted that many do not show up for those check-ins with ICE. Psaki said that no-shows will be “subject to the repercussions of that,” but she did not specify what those repercussions might be.
Later, Melugin reported that the Biden administration is allowing about 40% of single, adult illegal border-crossers to stay in the U.S. They’re the ones being put on planes into the interior. Melugin also reported that some of those released have misdemeanor criminal histories, “including assault, DUI, drug possession, and illegal reentry.” When Melugin asked ICE for comment, all he got was a statement that the U.S. government assesses each illegal immigrant on a “case by case” basis.
The public knows very little about this process. How many illegal immigrants have been relocated? Where have they been sent? How many have been charged or convicted of crimes? How many have complied with the requirement to check in with immigration authorities? What nongovernmental organizations are assisting them? How much is the federal government paying for this? Is there a limit on how many will be relocated? And more.
The bottom line: Yes, the news is filled with reports on Ukraine, or COVID, or the latest twists and turns of the Biden agenda on Capitol Hill. But what’s happening on the border — the U.S.-Mexico border — is important news, and you need to know more about it.
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