I & I Editorial BoardAt a briefing last week, a daring reporter asked President Joe Biden why he decided to visit the border now, after Republicans have been calling for him to do so for nearly two years – during which time an unprecedented 4.4 million people crossed the border illegally.
Biden’s answer: “Because the Republicans haven’t been serious about this at all. Come on. They haven’t been serious about this at all.”
That answer makes no sense. If Republicans haven’t been serious – which is a bald-faced lie – then wouldn’t that be more of an incentive for Biden to take the reins?
But nothing Biden is saying lately about the border makes sense. It didn’t when he was denying the problem existed. It doesn’t now that he’s trying to shift blame to the GOP.
Remember that from day one, Biden insisted that the border was secure. At least, that’s what he’s had his Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tell Congress repeatedly. Mayorkas did so as recently as November, a month when border patrol agents “encountered” more than 233,000 border jumpers – which was 33% more than the previous November, 224% more than November 2021, and 448% higher than November 2020.
For the most part, Biden simply ignored the issue, and with Democrats in charge of Congress, he knew there’d be no accountability. Plus, he could count on the media to ignore the issue.
But now with Republicans in control of the House, suddenly ignoring the border isn’t an option. The GOP won’t let the issue slide.
So, what’s Biden’s recourse? Simple. Blame Republicans.
At the press event last week, Biden complained that “congressional Republicans have refused to consider my comprehensive plan. And they rejected my recent request for an additional $3.5 billion to secure the border and funds for 2,000 new asylum personnel … and 100 new immigration judges.”
He said that the “failure to pass and fund this comprehensive plan has increased the challenges that we’re seeing at our southwest border.”
Wait a second.
Biden was able to get more than $3 trillion in new spending through Congress. He’s pushed the limits of presidential authority to achieve the things he still couldn’t get through Congress. But when it comes to the border, he couldn’t get the $3.5 billion he wanted because of the party that did not control the House or the Senate or the White House?
As Biden would say, c’mon man.
Biden also announced new policies that he said would “substantially reduce the number of people attempting — attempting to cross our southwest border without going through a legal process.”
What he didn’t say, and wasn’t asked, was why, if these are such fantastic ideas, he kept them bottled up while the border was being overrun.
The problem is that Biden has been lying about the border for so long (which we’ve written about on multiple occasions: “Cataloging Biden’s Lies About The Border,” “One Chart That Exposes Biden’s Big Border Lie,” “Mayorkas Lies Again To Congress. Isn’t That Illegal?”) he can no longer tell truth from fiction.
And so, at his press event, Biden added more untruths to the pile.
His claim that he pushed for a comprehensive border plan on “day one” is a laugh. What he did on day one was issue a raft of executive orders undoing Trump policies that actually had been working to control the border.
And that $3.5 billion Biden wanted wouldn’t have gone to border security, but to speed up the process of getting illegals in the country.
As the Daily Signal points out, the recent $1.7 trillion “omnibus bill” includes a provision saying that money for the Customs and Border Protection specifically cannot be used “to acquire, maintain, or extend border security technology and capabilities, except for technology and capabilities to improve Border Patrol processing.”
The only question we have is are the American people buying any of the excrement Biden is peddling?
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
In light of Biden’s decades long propensity to make everything up, as above, blaming Republicans for his own universally known calamity managing the southern border, perhaps you could run a feature that highlights when Biden actually tells the truth?
Does he ever?
Biden’s indifference to the insanity going on at our southern border is a disgrace. Cartels are making money trafficking, people are being left to die along the way and we don’t know who the migrants are with anything close to certainty. Also, illegals cause the wages of the working poor to stagnate and they overwhelm our social services agencies.
I’m the grandson of an immigrant. I welcome everyone who comes here and I’m happy for them. We also need them because birthrates are going down. But our federal government has the responsibility to assure us we get the best and brightest and that everyone is properly vetted. It’s an epic failure.
this is part of the “strategy” from “rules for radicals”, ie blame your opponents for what you are doing. Nothing new here, democrats have been playing this game for decades.
This clown went to wall president trump built. To feel secure. They should of taken him to the part where it was open and where they stopped building the day he sign to halt further building. Coward