OPINION:
Seasonal travel mayhem reached a new low with images from the train tracks revealing ticketless, windblown passengers clinging to the roof of a rail car near the Texas border.
An embarrassed President Biden scrambled to rethink the jarring optics, which clash with the good cheer of the Christmas season. Indications are Americans may not forget what they’ve seen from the wild Southwest when they vote in 2024.
On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection suspended freight-rail traffic from Mexico crossing into Texas at Eagle Pass and El Paso. The unusual move follows video showing thousands of foreign citizens, including children, perched atop freight rail cars clacking through the Mexican hinterlands en route to the border and U.S. cities.
“After observing a recent resurgence of smuggling organizations moving migrants through Mexico via freight trains, CBP is taking additional actions to surge personnel and address this concerning development, including in partnership with Mexican authorities,” an agency statement read.
Lest Americans conclude that Mr. Biden has finally embraced his duty to protect the southern border, they should know that the train traffic has been halted so Border Patrol agents can be redeployed to help speed the illegals arriving by other means of transportation, including foot, raft, car and truck. Some security.
Uncontrolled illegal immigration has been a persistent feature of the Biden era, but American TV screens showing an endless flow of humanity riding the iron horse northward has rendered the Biden border breakdown a critical symbol of the president’s refusal to enforce immigration regulations.
Earlier this month, border agents reported encounters with northbound travelers totaling 10,000 in a day, not counting “got-aways.” The all-time single-day record was smashed with 12,000 border encounters. The current volume of daily border-crossers is on track to swamp the total number of border enforcement actions logged in the past fiscal year ending in September, which topped 3.2 million. October registered 309,000 more, according to CBP figures.
Mr. Biden and other Democrats have sought to capitalize on Republicans’ demand for better border security by conditioning funding upon approval of billions he wants to send to defend Ukraine’s border. But a Wall Street Journal poll conducted earlier this month indicates Americans don’t share those priorities.
The survey found immigration the most important issue for 13% of respondents when considering candidates in the 2024 presidential election, second only to the economy, at 21%. By contrast, the percentage claiming the Ukraine-Russia issue as their top concern: zero.
It’s little wonder, then, that the Biden administration has been forced to rethink the spectacle of invasion by train, at least temporarily. Even open-borders die-hard Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has pulled a policy about-face, recently citing an “acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers” in fast-tracking the construction of 20 miles of border wall along the Rio Grande in Texas.
The holiday-season sight of train-rooftop riders barreling toward the wild southwestern border encapsulates officialdom’s disdain for a legal and orderly system of immigration. President Biden’s folly may cost him the Oval Office.
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