OPINION:
Who says President Biden isn’t great for the economy?
Sure, he is crippling America’s energy independence with a full-scale assault on domestic oil and gas production. And, yes, he killed thousands of good jobs with a flick of a pen when he nixed the Keystone Pipeline and halted completion of the border wall.
And behind the scenes today, there is no telling the miles and miles of red tape his administration is unrolling to strangle American small businesses and the innovation that will quietly cost our economy billions of dollars for years and decades to come.
But when it comes to human smuggling, these are heady go-go days that Enron could have only dreamed about on Wall Street.
Children! Women! Families! Step right up and meet your local coyote who for a cool $8,000 will take you on an all-expenses-paid Biden excursion through the dangerous deserts of Mexico and across the swift waters of the Rio Grande!
In just the first few months of Mr. Biden’s presidency, he has nearly managed to double the number of migrants thronging our borders. And there is no indication that the increases will slow any time soon.
Not only has Mr. Biden ushered in boom times for the ruthless coyotes who smuggle people across the border, he has single-handedly sparked an industry-wide boom for all the lawless actors in the illegal-immigration industry.
Mr. Biden is making it rain for drug cartels who watch the border, coordinate smuggling and reap massive paydays thanks to lax American border enforcement. Drivers, lookouts and scouts are making a bundle off Mr. Biden, too.
Any examination of the cottage industry booming under Mr. Biden’s lawless border policies would be incomplete without considering who benefits as well inside the United States. Big businesses desperate for cheap labor make out like bandits. So do wealthy Americans seeking cheap landscapers and nannies.
The Americans who pay the steepest price, as always, are America’s poor and working folks. But who cares? They don’t have any annoying lobbyists in Washington.
It’s like the tree that falls in the woods. If an American citizen complains but they don’t have a lobbyist in Washington, do they really have a complaint?
But nobody pays a greater price for Mr. Biden’s human smuggling racket than the poor souls who fall prey to coyote slavery.
President Donald Trump managed to do more in four years to fix the border than any president or any Congress in a half-century. Mr. Biden immediately scrapped everything that was working.
Back is “catch and release,” which automatically guarantees illegals a foothold in the U.S. as soon as they illegally set foot in the county.
Gone are deportations.
Scrapped is Mr. Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum cases, which brought so much order — and deterrence — at the border.
Also back are the cages that were first invented the last time Mr. Biden was in the White House.
Perhaps most insidious of all is that back in Central and South America, the message is clear. America is back open for lawlessness.
That ensures that the waves and waves of migrants making the treacherous trek will continue. And the slavers and coyotes and drug cartels will continue to prosper.
Under Joe Biden.
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor. He may be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com.
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