The Wall Street Journal’s Evolving Views on “Open Borders”
An ideal that’s now de facto policy, with disastrous results
By Andrew R. Arthur on November 22, 2022
A November 18 Wall Street Journal editorial details the Biden administration’s feckless immigration policies, and explains how the border will get even worse now that a federal judge has vacated CDC orders directing the expulsion of illegal migrants, which were issued pursuant to Title 42 of the U.S. Code in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Not so long ago, the paper called for “open borders”, but given the disastrous results of the Biden administration’s experiment with that ideal, it’s time for a much different tack.
Biden’s Border Fiasco, in Brief. By way of background, Joe Biden inherited what Rodney Scott, his first Border Patrol chief, described last September as “arguably the most effective border security in” U.S. history, but the 46th president quickly allowed it to “disintegrate” as “inexperienced political appointees” ignored “common sense border security recommendations from experienced career professionals.”
Border Patrol migrant apprehensions at the Southwest border have soared under Biden: In FY 2021, agents apprehended nearly 1.66 million illegal entrants, a new annual record. The actual number of aliens who entered illegally was much higher, however, as that apprehension total did not include an estimated 389,000 “got-aways”, illegal entrants who successfully evaded agents and entered illegally that fiscal year.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Wall-Street-Journals-Evolving-Views-Open-Borders
