Politics Aside, there is a Genuine Crisis at the US Border

It’s a stark warning from a man few might have expected it to come from.

“By anyone’s definition, by any measure, right now we have a crisis at our southern border,” opens Obama’s former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in a strikingly insightful and balanced discussion on “Cavuto LIVE” on Saturday, citing recent stats that “there were 4,000 apprehensions in one day alone this past week, and we’re on pace for 100,000 apprehensions on our southern border this month.”

“That is by far a greater number than anything I saw on my watch in my three years as secretary of Homeland Security,”

Politicians continue to bicker across the aisle; stalling on any decisive decisions for the longstanding issue of illegal immigration. But in light of that inaction agents and administrators of all political orientations are becoming increasingly vocal and clear: There is a very real border crisis, and we need to fix it.

Yet this isn’t just border patrol grunts and ICE agents; easily cast off by general left leaning opposition as ‘evil racists’ anyhow etc. Officials that held high ranks of office from all administrations – most focally Obama’s – are clearly feeling the obligation to weigh in as the desperate need for funding and action at the southern border becomes more and more dire under an unprecedented flood of migration to the United States.

According to Customs and Border Protection, more than 76,000 migrants were detained in February, marking the highest number of apprehensions in 12 years. That figure includes more than 7,000 unaccompanied children. More than 36,000 migrant families have arrived in the El Paso region in fiscal 2019, compared with about 2,000 at the same time last year, according to CBP data.

Jeh Johnson isn’t the only high-ranking Obama official to come out the woodwork to validate the existence of the border crisis either.

Mark Morgan, who served as the head of Border Patrol in the Obama administration, also wrote in an op-ed for Fox News that “a thorough historical analysis clearly shows we are experiencing a crisis greater than we have in recent times.”

“The entire immigration system is overrun,” he wrote. “They’re not at the breaking point, they’re past it. Border Patrol resources are being pulled off the front lines to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis while the cartels further exploit our open borders, increasing the threat to our country.”

Pragmatism Over Politics

The reality is the 2000s are seeing a ‘new’ phenomenon (at least in modernity) of mass migration. Western developed nations – or even just more developed and stable neighbors – are becoming increasingly inundated with migrants stemming from global hotspots, i.e. countries facing instability.

The reality is that these people come from such untenable situations at home that simply walking to another country with next to nothing hasn’t only become an option to consider; it’s become their chosen path. Whether it be Syrians streaming into the EU or El Salvadorians crossing into Texas the vast majority of illegal immigrants genuinely are desperate people.

This relates to a key factor that has catalyzed the migration flood; international asylum law.

People aren’t necessarily jumping fences to sneak across ranches in California much these days, they’re mobbing ports of entry to enroll in an entirely legal process in which they hope to be accepted under international law as asylum seeker; refugees basically.

The problem is this process is neither fast nor funded by some magical UN coins, it falls onto the already overloaded US border system replete with overstretched agencies tasked now with both ensuring our security as well as managing a global humanitarian crisis. And with the numbers becoming objectively alarming – i.e., there is a statistically demonstrable sharp increase in people bloating the system – they need help now.

Accepting and assuaging the border crisis is both a matter of American well being and a humanitarian necessity by all measures. That’s why Obama administration top brass are willing to go on FOX to say so; they genuinely see a crisis.

Bureaucrats, agents and troopers on the front line are facing so many incoming asylum seekers that the system is overrun. And an overrun system doesn’t work for either the Republican or Democrat platforms. So, it’s time for Congress to listen to what people from all partisan lines are saying. It’s time for the border crisis to be properly and openly addressed.

Because like it or not – politically expedient or not – it is very much a reality we’re facing.