The Wall Street Journal editorial board is recalling when Democrats called conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border similar to those under the Biden administration a “moral catastrophe.”
The editorial board explored the similarities between the border conditions under the Biden and Trump administrations in an op-ed published on Sunday.
The op-ed noted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was dispatched to the border by the White House on Saturday. The writers argued, “Stephen Miller, the restrictionist adviser to Donald Trump, could not have devised a better way to undermine the prospects for immigration reform.”
The editorial board pointed out U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had close to 397,000 interactions with migrants at the border in the first five months of the 2021 fiscal year. The number is approximately 25% more than in the same amount of time in 2019.
“In 2019 the surge of migrants led to ‘dangerous overcrowding’ at border control stations and detention facilities, in the words of the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general,” the writers added. “Covid and social-distancing requirements have further reduced capacity at government facilities and nonprofit shelters.”
The editorial board acknowledged CBP reported almost 9,500 encounters with unaccompanied children in February alone. The number is up 61% over January.
“The wait times for children stuck at CBP facilities now often exceed the 72-hour legal limit, and the [Washington] Post says unaccompanied children are ‘waiting in cramped and austere holding cells with concrete floors and benches’ where the ‘lights remain on 24 hours a day,'” the op-ed reads.
The Journal’s editorial board asked, “Remember in 2019 when the media and Democrats called similar conditions a moral catastrophe?”
They argued the surge at the border is “a direct response to Biden policies and rhetoric.”
The editorial board referenced a policy under the Trump administration when asylum seekers had to wait in Mexico for their cases to be adjudicated by immigration courts in the United States.
“The Biden Administration ended this policy and has begun admitting asylum seekers with pending cases no matter how far-fetched the claims,” the members of the board wrote.
They went on, “The clear signal to migrants, and to the human smugglers who run people across the border, is that now is the time to come to America.”
The editorial board explained Biden’s immigration plan offers migrants “few incentives to wait and enter legally.”
“Americans want to be generous to immigrants, but they also reject the view that the U.S. can finance the healthcare and education of anyone who breaks U.S. law to get here,” the op-ed says.
It continues, “U.S. immigration politics is stalemated by the extremes of the entry-for-everyone left and the Stephen Miller restrictionist right.”
The editorial board concluded by calling for a White House “rethink.”