Border security is national security

OPINION:

For my money, J.D. Vance’s best moment on the campaign trail was when Martha Raddatz, ABC News’ chief global affairs correspondent, attempted to grill him for supporting former President Donald Trump’s claim that Venezuelan gang members had “invaded and conquered” a Denver suburb.

Illegal immigrants belonging to Tren de Aragua had taken over apartment complexes in Aurora, where their crimes included violence, extortion, drug trafficking and child prostitution.

The vice presidential candidate defended Mr. Trump’s characterization.

“Senator Vance, I’m gonna stop you because I know exactly what happened,” Ms. Raddatz scolded. “I’m gonna stop you. The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes, and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems!”

“Martha, do you hear yourself?” Mr. Vance responded. “Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’s open border?”

He further pointed out that “when you let people in by the millions, most of whom are unvetted, most of whom you don’t know who they really are, you’re going to have problems like this.”

Yes, along with overburdened welfare, health and educational systems, housing shortages and heightened threats to national security (the issue I worry about professionally).

Not long ago, Republicans, Democrats and even big-time TV reporters agreed that secure borders were both good and necessary.

“I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants,” Hillary Clinton said in a 2003 interview. Two years later, during her Senate reelection campaign, she warned that terrorists could be sneaking into the U.S.

In a 2015 interview, Sen. Bernie Sanders said that “what right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy” because that would bring down wages.

Reminder: One can oppose illegal immigration — especially on a massive scale — while also supporting legal and controlled immigration.

I am grateful that Elon Musk, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Melania Trump chose to become Americans.

But throwing open the southern border and allowing — according to a recent House Judiciary Committee report — over 8 million illegal immigrants from the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America to stream into the country is an extreme and dangerous policy. And it has been President Biden’s policy.

Perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised us. As vice president, Mr. Biden asserted that a “constant, unrelenting stream” of immigrants into the U.S. was “a source of our strength.”       

His view aligned with that of then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in 2015 welcomed 1 million immigrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa.

John Kerry, then the secretary of state, praised her. Time magazine named her “Person of the Year” and “Chancellor of the Free World.” Britain’s Economist magazine called her “The Indispensable European.”

Before long, local governments in Germany were struggling to house, feed and acculturate the newcomers. 

On New Year’s Eve 2016, over 1,500 criminal complaints were filed in German cities, many involving sexual offenses by groups of men believed to be recent migrants.

Frauke Petry, head of the then-3-year-old Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, told a Cologne newspaper that these atrocities were “the consequence of uncontrolled migration.”

The crime wave has continued. The AfD has become the strongest German voice in arguing for restricting immigration.

Which brings us to a simmering controversy. On Dec. 20, Mr. Musk tweeted: “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

A few days later, he published an op-ed in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag describing the AfD as the “last vestige of hope” for Germany.

Mr. Vance, now vice president-elect, has also made statements supporting the AfD.

That’s drawn criticism, including from Rep. Daniel Goldman, New York Democrat, who called the AfD a “Neo-Nazi” party.

Is it?

In the long and detailed “Manifesto for Germany: The Political Programme of the Alternative for Germany,” you’ll find nothing to substantiate such allegations.

On the contrary, the AfD “pledges its unconditional support to the freedom of faith, worship and conscience.”

It opposes “Islamic practice which is directed against our liberal-democratic constitutional order, our laws, and the Judeo-Christian and humanist foundations of our culture.”

That said, there are extremists in the AfD. One example is Bjorn Hocke, leader of the AfD party in the eastern German state of Thuringia.

He has opined that it was problematic to think of Hitler as “absolutely evil.” And in May of last year, he was convicted of using a banned Nazi slogan at a campaign rally.

Mr. Hocke has also expressed favorable views toward Vladimir Putin, the Russian dictator now waging a barbaric war of conquest against Ukraine.

To be fair, it’s not unusual for political parties to have extremists within their ranks.

I’m old enough to remember David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who ran as a Republican in various elections in the 1980s and 1990s.

You’re not old enough to have forgotten how extreme Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Pramila Jayapal are.

Sometimes, political parties marginalize their extremists. (Mr. Duke eventually left the GOP.) Sometimes, the extremists take over.

We don’t yet know which path the AfD will follow. So it would be prudent to exercise caution.

Germany’s federal elections are scheduled for Feb. 23. Polls indicate the center-right Christian Democratic Union leading with 31% of the vote. The AfD is polling second at 19%, a significant gain over earlier years.

I’ll leave you with this uncommon sense from the economist and social philosopher Thomas Sowell: “The first responsibility of any government is to protect the people already in the country.”

When conventional politicians shirk their first responsibility, expect unconventional politicians to take up the mission.

• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.