As reported by “60 Minutes” February 4, 2024, while the illegal migrants flowing across the U.S. southern border come from all around the world, the fastest growing group are from China. A 4-foot gap at the end of a border fence, 60 miles east of San Diego, California, is one of the newest routes taken by many.
“60 Minutes” shows dozens of Chinese making their way through the small opening early one morning, unfazed both by cameras and an armed border agent standing nearby. Over four days, the crew counted nearly 600 migrants — many of them Chinese — crossing the border through this illegal entryway.
In 2023, border patrol apprehended 37,000 Chinese nationals crossing illegally, 50 times more than in 2021. Many of the Chinese nationals “60 Minutes” spoke to said they were trying to escape the repressive politics and declining economy of their home country.
They claim they learned about this particular route on TikTok. Indeed, “60 Minutes” was able to find videos providing detailed step-by-step instructions for making the trek through South America to the Mexico-U.S. border, including how to hire smugglers to drive them to this particular opening in the fence.
Border Closed to Journalists, But Not Illegal Crossers
Meanwhile, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson notes that as the border crisis continues to worsen, authorities are cutting off access to journalists. “To be clear, they haven’t cut off access to the illegal border crossers,” she says. “They have cut off access to the media. So while foreigners can still cross at will, the credentialed press are restricted from public property where we could see it.”
Texas is now trying to stem the relentless tide of several thousand migrants crossing the border each day. Under Operation Lone Star, Texas is funding the installation of anti-climb fences and razor wire in areas that were previously wide open. Twenty-five other governors are also backing Texas’ decision to crack down on the border invasion.
In a January 2024 Fox News appearance, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Because the Biden administration has really, truly abdicated its responsibility to secure the border and enforce the laws, Texas, very simply, is securing the border.”
Texas has also passed a new law, which takes effect March 5, 2024, that will make illegal border crossing a state crime. Local police will then have the authority to make arrests, and a judge can order illegal crossers to be returned to Mexico.
In the meantime, Abbott has resorted to bussing a fraction of the apprehended illegal crossers to sanctuary cities in other states. As a result of having to live with the consequences of unrestricted influx, some sanctuary cities are now starting to rethink the sanity of unvetted migration.
Lack of work, housing, food and social services all end up fueling crime that make American communities less safe and more inhospitable. So, while some illegal migrants may be escaping dire conditions in their homelands, Biden’s open border policy is guaranteeing that these people won’t be any better off here either.
Sanctuary Cities Are Starting to Realize What the Problem Is
For example, in February 2023, a local San Francisco news station reported:
“San Francisco is rethinking its ‘sanctuary city’ status as fentanyl continues to kill a staggering number of overdose victims. Investigators believe that a significant percentage of people selling drugs in San Francisco — as many as half — are undocumented immigrants.
“‘It is time to withdraw the protection of sanctuary from undocumented immigrants trafficking fentanyl on our streets,’ Supervisor Matt Dorsey said Tuesday. Dorsey is proposing legislation to change San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies to exclude undocumented immigrants who are arrested for dealing the powerful opioid.
“The legislation would deny ‘sanctuary’ to adults who have been convicted of a fentanyl-dealing felony within the past seven years, and re-arrested for another fentanyl-dealing crime or violent felony crime.”
The burden of illegal migration is also making itself felt in places like New York City, another once-proud sanctuary outpost. In early February 2024, Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York, penned an article in the New York Post, stating:
“NYCs migrant crisis hits new level of madness: Free rooms, meals to thugs who are robbing us. Maria Manaura, 32, who’s been arrested at least eight times in the six months since she arrived from Venezuela, is living at the Row NYC Hotel, once hailed for its unbeatable Times Square location and front-row view of the Theater District.
“Now it’s drug infested and violent but still costs taxpayers $500 a night for each of the 1,300 rooms given over to migrants. Manaura was busted again last week for snatching a woman’s cellphone on the No. 6 train.
“She was charged with grand larceny and resisting arrest, but instead of locking her up, Judge Jay Weiner granted supervised release, likely in time for her to make it back to the hotel and another prepared meal paid for by you and me. It’s sickening.
“Migrants like Manaura who rack up clashes with police should be made ineligible for the city’s largesse. Handing out hotel rooms and free meals to repeat thugs makes it easier for them to commit crimes and makes us patsies.
“The Democratic Party is turning New York City into a Shangri-la for international theft rings and migrants here to rob and burglarize. Taxpayers foot the bill for the thieves’ hotel accommodations plus three meals a day, a long list of other benefits, even free bus tickets if they have to skip town in a hurry. If you’re a criminal, what’s not to like? …
“Last week, Mayor Adams inked contracts for $137 million for more hotel rooms for migrants and announced the city will hand out debit cards — worth up to $1,000 a month … That gives migrants the same purchasing power as low-income New Yorkers who are here legally.
“Migrants will have to sign an affidavit they will spend the funds only on food and baby supplies. That’s a laugh. But there’s nothing funny about an invasion of career criminals posing as asylum seekers. New York has a heart, but it’s time New York used its brain.”
