OPINION:
Democrats are desperate — how else to describe this latest line of logic they’re trying to sell on President Trump’s executive stay on refugees?
Get this, from a headline at the Hill: “Refugee ban could result in increased illegal immigration.”
Come again?
Yep, there it is, right in the opening paragraph: “Trump’s temporary ban on refugees could create a new wave of illegal border crossings, experts warn.”
That, as yesterday’s headlines, bleeding into today’s news cycle, went like this: Mr. Trump’s tough talk on the border has led to a 40 percent drop in illegal crossings at the America-Mexico border, according to just-released Customs and Border Protection statistics.
And the CBP data is not insignificant. The 40 percent drop in illegal crossings recorded for the period from January to February 2017 represents a major break from 20-year trends. Normally, the January-February months experience illegal crossings 10 percent to 20 percent higher than other months.
Let’s see, what is it that’s different about this particular January-February time frame — what’s new that could possibly be effecting such change?
Oh yeah. That’d be Mr. Trump.
In June 2015, Mr. Trump said: “I will build a great [border] wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me — and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that.”
Consistency is key.
In January 2017, while signing his executive orders on immigration, Trump said: “A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control as it gets back its borders.”
And when those orders were shot down by a federal judge, Mr. Trump didn’t crumble and cave, but rather bounced back with new and improved versions to uphold America’s national security — temporary bans on migrants from six terror hot spot nations and on refugees.
Now here we are, applauding a 40 percent drop in illegal crossings.
The Trump messaging, to put it mildly, is working. Amnesty fans are not only howling — they’re frantic.
And it’s showing. Big time.
They’re taking Mr. Trump’s 120-day ban on refugees and giving it a twist to try and show the utter futility of any and all conservative attempt to control the border. But their logic is so flawed it’s like watching a scared child cover eyes to make the bad go away.
Their pitiful pitch is this, as put forth in the Hill: The 120-day halt on refugees conflicts with a Barack Obama-brokered agreement giving minor-aged Central Americans the ability to apply for and receive refugee status before they actually make the journey to the United States. The deal was supposed to reduce the number of minor-aged migrants coming across the borders without their parents. The program’s still active. But Trump’s refugee order limits the number allowed under this program.
So it’s as Rep. Norma Torres, California Democrat, said, in The Hill: “We could already be maxed out at 100 percent in 90 days. That means no one else could come in.”
And that, in the minds of the desperate Democrats who are rushing for new ways to fight Mr. Trump’s border restrictions, means more will cross the border illegally.
Their creativity is breathtaking.
“I would suspect that certain families will decide that the risk is so dangerous that they’ll send their children” across to America illegally, Maureen Meyer, with the Washington Office for Latin America, told The Hill.
Right. So in order to limit illegal border crossings, Mr. Trump actually needs to open the borders wider?
That’s what the left wants believed. Note to left: Americans just aren’t that gullible.
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