OPINION:
Some 8,447 pounds of fentanyl seized at the border this fiscal year — enough poison to kill 2 billion people.
And 15,000 aliens with criminal convictions or outstanding warrants — including 195 gang members — were arrested after illegally crossing our border.
Violent crime and chaos are sweeping our communities, shown horrifically by the killing of Laken Riley. The person charged with murder in her slaying is a criminal illegal alien.
These are the poisonous fruits of President Biden’s lawless immigration policies. A new report released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform details how Mr. Biden’s abuse of the executive branch’s limited statutory immigration parole authority is pouring gasoline on the border crisis. Millions of otherwise inadmissible foreign nationals are allowed to remain in the country — unleashing a crime wave and creating a shadow immigration system that offers incentives for more illegal immigration, at the American people’s expense.
Between October 2021 and October 2023, the Biden administration’s expanded parole program allowed at least 1.8 million aliens to enter the country illegally. In the first half of fiscal 2023 alone, Mr. Biden admitted more parolees (636,601) than legal immigrants received green cards (549,419).
But this is a far cry from the parole authority Congress established in 1952. Section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that the secretary of homeland security may “parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit any alien applying for admission to the United States.”
In other words, Congress granted the executive very limited authority to allow otherwise inadmissible aliens to enter the country for a limited time for clearly defined reasons.
The Biden administration is warping this tool beyond any stretch of the imagination. By no reasonable interpretation does the statute allow a president to establish special parole programs for specific nationality groups, allow aliens who are encountered crossing the border to enter freely, or grant these illegal aliens permission to work and remain here indefinitely. Mr. Biden is creating an entirely new immigration program operating outside of the law.
It’s clear that Mr. Biden is also abusing these policies to hide the true scope of his border crisis from the public. Flying illegal aliens into the country and allowing 43,000 people per month who do not have proper visas to schedule appointments at ports of entry avoids the videos of illegal immigrants smashing through border fences and causing chaos in the streets.
Remember that one of the people Mr. Biden brought into the country through this program is Jose Ibarra, the Venezuelan gang member accused of killing Laken Riley.
And who’s paying for it all? You are, of course. These paroled illegal aliens are eligible for numerous public assistance programs and are not monitored or required to check in with the government while in the United States. If you think this is crazy, you’re far from alone.
That’s why the House passed the Secure the Border Act last May. The bill, the strongest border security package in history, would affirmatively end Mr. Biden’s parole scheme. That’s also why I, Dan Bishop, introduced the SUE for Immigration Act, which empowers state attorneys general to sue federal officials who flagrantly violate our immigration laws.
This important legislation to hold the administration accountable passed the House as part of the Laken Riley Act on March 7. Yet the Biden administration continues to stonewall these efforts, instead allowing crime and chaos to run rampant in our streets.
The American people demand a secure border and an immigration system that puts the country’s needs first. They deserve nothing less, and Congress must deliver.
• Republican Rep. Dan Bishop represents North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. Dan Stein is president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
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