Stop rolling the dice on border security

By U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer
R-Nebraska

Recently, the FBI arrested an Afghan national planning an Election Day attack on U.S. soil.

The man was paroled into the country following the U.S.’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. He was one of tens of thousands of Afghans evacuated to the U.S. and granted entry under a humanitarian parole program.

A report from the Pentagon published after the withdrawal revealed officials identified at least 50 evacuees with “potentially significant security concerns,” several of which couldn’t be found afterward.

However, the White House press secretary had said, “I can absolutely assure you that no one is coming into the United States of America who has not been through a thorough screening and background check process.”

And yet, a dangerous Afghan national who was plotting a terrorist attack was allowed into our country.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Many dangerous individuals have made their way into our communities, whether by breaking the law and entering the country illegally or through the Biden administration’s abuse of our parole system.

Over the past few years, the Biden administration has encouraged hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to come to the U.S., either through so-called humanitarian parole programs or catch-and-release practices. But significant numbers of these arrivals are members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang known for human trafficking, murder, executions, drug-trafficking, kidnappings, ransoms, arms trafficking, and money laundering.

Recently, officials arrested gang members in Texas and Colorado after these dangerous individuals overtook apartment complexes to use as bases of operations for their criminal activities.

The Biden-Harris administration has released more than 7.3 million illegal aliens into the country. At least 375 of these were on the U.S. government’s terrorist watchlist.

And just in fiscal year 2023, 169 migrants with positive terrorism watchlist matches were apprehended along our southern border.

From fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2023, the number of encounters of foreign nationals on the U.S. government’s terror watch list spiked and increased tenfold. And in total, compared to the Trump administration, the number of watchlist alien encounters increased by more than 3,000 percent. 

So why the sudden increase?

Simply put, the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies encourage illegal crossings.

They scrapped the policies of the former Trump administration like the “Remain in Mexico” program, halted construction of the border wall, and reversed policies that ended catch-and-release.

Instead, the Biden-Harris administration enacted policies boosting border admissions and extended tax-funded public benefits for non-citizens, all while refusing to deport illegal immigrants.

As many times the population of Nebraska has streamed into our country, the sheer volume has overwhelmed law enforcement’s ability to catch, track, and vet these individuals. The Biden-Harris administration has made the job of border security agents so difficult that many of them have simply quit.

Since 2020, approximately 4,000 Border Patrol personnel have left, citing the administration’s betrayal of their mission. Now, only 19,000 maintain our security. Many more have said that if Vice President Harris is elected, they will leave.

The administration has tried to solve the “root problem” of illegal immigration, which they believe to be political instability and crime in South America, as well as climate change. They’ve met with no success, which is unsurprising. Pride and politics have stopped them from taking immediate actions we know will stop the abuse of parole, support the Border Patrol, and slow illegal immigration. Under the Trump administration, our immigration policies helped, not hindered, our law enforcement officers.

But instead of accepting practical solutions to secure America, Democrats in Congress have ignored them. In 2023, I co-led the introduction of the Secure the Border Act in the Senate, which was the most comprehensive border security legislation in decades. The act would have tightened asylum standards, criminalized visa overstays, and increased the number of Border Patrol Agents. But Democrat Senate leaders, from sanctuary states, refused to bring the bill up for a vote.

In the case of the Afghan national planning a terrorist attack this Election Day, law enforcement officers managed to catch him in time. But as the volume of individuals entering the country increases, and law enforcement’s ability to handle them falls, it’s only a matter of time until one slips through the cracks, and America pays the price.

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