Leave it to the Democrats to take a horrible situation and make it that much worse. But that’s exactly what they’re trying to do in the House with a new Northern Triangle and Border Stabilization Act, which aims to increase the number of Central American refugees the U.S. will take in each year. At a time when our border is overrun with phony asylum seekers who will, most of them, eventually disappear into the cities and towns of America without every standing in front of a judge, the Democrats think the answer to the crisis is to double down on the terrible policies that created this disaster in the first place.
What is wrong with these people?
“One interesting provision would change the law to raise the number of refugees taken in from Central American countries to 100,000 per year, separate and apart from the refugees we take in from elsewhere — which Trump has dramatically cut,” reported the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent. “This can be applied for from afar, and Democratic aides tell me the idea here is that, if you create new in-region ways to apply for refugee status while raising the numbers accepted, it minimizes the incentive to trek to the border.”
So, at a time when any sensible observer could look at the crisis at the border and see that we need to do something to deter all of these asylum-seekers from coming here, Sargent and the Democrats think we need to rush in the opposite direction. Not only should we expand the number of refugees we take in, we should also let them apply for asylum from the comfort of their own homes. Hell, why not just let people do it over the internet? Do they have internet in El Salvador?
Is there a role for the U.S. when it comes to taking in actual refugees fleeing violence and oppression in other countries? Certainly there is. Few would dispute it. But look at what Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA) said on the House floor about this bill and identify what’s wrong with his logic.
“The United States of America has been the gold standard and that is the argument that we are making today,” Cardenas said. “This is not a game. We are fighting for the lives of human beings who should have the opportunity to be like everyone else on this floor to be allowed the freedom to be who they choose to be, who God made them to be in the greatest place on the planet.”
If we are the “gold standard” and the “greatest place on the planet,” we did not get that way by accident or by some random, magical quality of the soil. And we will not stay that way if we allow ourselves to be overrun by people who couldn’t do anything with their homelands except turn them into desolate wastelands of poverty and crime. What, exactly, do you think they’ll do to America given enough time? What do you think they’re doing to Europe even as we speak? Refugee and immigrant acceptance needs to be done in a measured, reasonable way that does not sacrifice the American standard of living.
If we give up everything we are to let everyone else in, then what favor have we done to anyone?