What Affect Does the Promise of Amnesty Have on Illegal Immigrants?

             President Joe Biden signed ten executive orders on immigration in the past three weeks. He signed five orders on January 20, the day that he was inaugurated, with three of the five meant to reverse a policy put in place by former President Donald Trump. 

·         Without reversing any Trump order, Biden extended “deferrals of deportation and work authorizations for Liberians with a safe haven in the United States until June 30, 2022.

·         Reversing a Trump order, Biden halted “construction of the border wall by terminating the national emergency declaration used to fund it.”

·         Biden ended Trump’s “expansion of immigration enforcement within the United States.”

·         Biden reversed “the Trump administration’s restrictions on US entry for passport holders from seven Muslim-majority countries.”

·         Biden fortified “DACA after Trump’s efforts to undo protections for undocumented people brought into the country as children.

Biden apparently took a break on signing executive orders aimed at erasing Trump’s achievements on the immigration front. However, he did not wait long to start signing them again on February 2. Apparently, he learned that he had not completely opened the border yet.

·         Biden rescinded “Trump’s memo requiring immigrants to repay the government if they receive public benefits. Elevates the role of the executive branch in promoting immigrant integration and inclusion, including reestablishing a Task Force on New Americans. Requires agencies to review immigration regulations and policies.

·         Biden reversed Trump’s order with one that “Aims to address economic and political causes of migration, works with organizations to provide protection to asylum seekers and ensures Central American asylum seekers have legal access to the United States. Rescinds Trump administration policies and guidelines and also initiates a review of policies “that have effectively closed the U.S. border to asylum seekers.”

·         Biden “Revokes Trump’s order justifying separating families at the border and creates a task force that recommends steps to Biden to reunite separated families.”

·         Biden reversed Trump’s order with one that “Directs relevant agencies to ensure LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers have equal access to protections, requires the Department of State to lead a standing group to respond quickly to international LGBTQI+ human rights abuses and to report annually to Congress on global LGBTQI+ abuses, directs agencies to review Trump administration policies and rescind those that are inconsistent with this memo within 100 days.”

·         Reversing a Trump order, Biden “Expands the United States Refugee Admissions Program and rescinds Trump policies that limited refugee admissions and required additional vetting.”

With a President who wants an open border -- wide for anyone who wants to enter the

nation, is it any wonder that increasing numbers of hopeful migrants are massing on our southern border or paying smugglers? The Progressives and Leftists have a plan to “fundamentally transform the nation,” and it seems obvious that they plan to do it by bringing in millions of undocumented immigrants and then granting amnesty to them.

The coyotes and other human traffickers are in business again! Mark Morgan and Ana Quintana wrote about the developing situation on the southern border. They linked to a story about a massacre in Camargo near the Texas border in which Mexican police participated. Nineteen people died, including thirteen people who were assumed to be Guatemalan migrants on their way to the United States. They were killed on January 22, and their bodies were found in a pickup truck that had been set on fire. Their bodies were burned so badly that they could not be identified. 

Families in Guatemala received a telephone call from a smuggler saying that they had been killed in a shootout. Reports state that at least twelve police officers were involved in the massacre, and they have been arrested and charged in the killings. Morgan and Quintana explained that “Such tragedies are not uncommon.” 

Mexican police particularly at the state and local level have often been accused of exploiting and killing migrants. Criminal organizations routinely prey on vulnerable people who are smuggled through violent and cartel-controlled areas. The left often paints amnesty as a humanitarian act, but clearly, the facts paint a darker reality. Promises of mass legalization and weakened enforcement lead to these tragedies.

            Morgan and Quintana note that the “massacre in Camargo underscores not only the risks that migrants confront to enter the United States, but the destabilizing role that Mexico’s security forces sometimes play along the border. This discovery “comes as President Biden attempts to reshape U.S. immigration policy so that it is ‘more fair, orderly and humane.”

            For the time being, migrants cannot enter the United States unless except with the help of a smuggler. Morgan and Quintana report that the “U.S.-Mexico border is closed to migrants, including asylum seekers, under a pandemic-era policy” that Biden has not yet cancelled. “That means the only way for most migrants to enter the United States is to pay a smuggler, as the Guatemalans did, putting their fate in the hands of a criminal group.”

            Immigration is one area where this election will have grave consequences. Under the policies of the Trump administration, a wall was being erected along the southern border to stop the smugglers and coyotes and to funnel the immigrants to certain areas. After immigrants were processed at the border, they were required to remain in Mexico until they are cleared for entry. The huge caravans across the wilderness had slowed or stopped until after Biden “won” the election. Now, the numbers are growing, and the nation is seeing the consequences of a Biden administration.