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Biden’s urgent Oval Office address omits reference to border crisis

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By Joe Guzzardi
Syndicated columnist

During his Oval Office address to the nation about Russia’s invasion into the Ukraine and Israel’s offensive against Gaza, President Biden quoted former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who had once called America “the indispensable nation.” 

The reference to the U.S. as indispensable struck many viewers as curious since the president, starting on the first day he entered the White House, has worked with such determination to destroy American sovereignty.

Since Biden assumed office, about 8.6 million foreign nationals have crossed the border and settled in the interior. Their personal histories, health statuses and intentions are mostly unknown. Worth noting is that Albright is one of a long line of secretaries of state who can turn a patriotic phrase but are, at heart, devoted globalists. The line, post-Albright, includes Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.

As expected, Biden pleaded for more money to fund the two wars and will send a $105 billion package to Congress where it will face an uphill battle. The bulk of the funding, $61.4 billion allocated for Ukraine at a time when Americans have grown tired of sending their tax dollars, without accountability, toward what appears to be an endless, distant conflict. 

Within the $61.4 billion is $481 million to support Ukrainians arriving in the U.S. through the “Uniting for Ukraine” program which provides a two-year parole that includes work permission and other affirmative benefits. In other words, more immigration – another Biden policy that Americans are weary of, especially as they watch thousands of migrants cross the U.S. border unchecked daily.

Israel’s share of the $105 billion pie is a mere 25 percent of Ukraine’s – $14.3 billion. Biden’s proposed national security package will provide Israel with $10.6 billion in assistance through the Defense Department, including air and missile defense support, industrial base investments and replenishment of U.S. military stocks that have been drawn down to support Israel.

The $105 billion total also allots $10 billion for humanitarian assistance. Tucked into the $10 billion is $850 million for what’s referred to as “migration and refugee assistance” at the U.S.-Mexico border. Again, more immigration and more facilitating of immigration which voters oppose.

Biden’s address flummoxed viewers. The president passionately made the case for the U.S. to aid in defending the Ukraine and Israel, and few dispute that both embattled nations need U.S. aid. But Biden has created a U.S. border crisis and then continuously ignored the calamities that an unprotected border spawned; among them, migrants deaths, drug smuggling, human trafficking, sex trafficking and environmental damage. Key administration officials like Vice President Kamala Harris and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have rubbed salt into concerned citizens’ wounds by, in defiance of ample evidence, insisting that the border is secure.

While Biden, imploring Congress and the Americans it represents, to act as the “agents of democracy,” he never in his 15-minute address mentioned the border and the terrorism threats that leaving it unprotected represents.

Maybe – but only maybe – the latest Customs and Border Protect report will awaken Biden, et al, to the homeland dangers percolating. Border officials arrested 18 people on the FBI’s terror watchlist in September, making fiscal year 2023 a record year for such encounters at the southern border. The watchlist, now officially called the Terrorist Screening Dataset, is the U.S. database that contains information on terrorist identities and includes not only known or suspected terrorists, but also affiliates of watch-listed individuals.

CBP statistics released Saturday showed that 169 people on the FBI terror watchlist were encountered between ports of entry at the Southern border in the past 12 months, a number that exceeds not only FY 22’s record-setting total, 98, but the last six fiscal years combined.

Including encounters between northern border entry ports, the total for FY 23 rose to 172. Thousands of “special interest aliens” from numerous countries, including the Middle East, have been arrested by Border Patrol agents while attempting to cross the U.S. southern border illegally over the last two years. Special interest aliens are people from countries the federal government identifies as having conditions that promote or protect terrorism or potentially pose some sort of national security threat. Iranians, Syrians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Afghans, Egyptians, Chinese and other nationalities have been stopped.

If the administration wants to avert what looks like the inevitable – a major terrorist attack on the homeland – it will have to get immediately busy shutting the border and deporting illegally present aliens.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years.

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