Todd Bensman is an award-winning field journalist and a national security fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies. He’s the author of “America’s Covert Border War” and the forthcoming book, “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”
During the first half of President Joe Biden’s administration, it’s been primarily border states that have felt the burden of the over 3 million illegal border crossers who have entered the United States. But by the end of his four-year term, the whole country will feel the impact of these open-border policies, said Bensman, with millions more illegal aliens overwhelming state infrastructures.
Liberty County, Texas, is an example of ground zero for the immigration crisis, said Bensman. Liberty County is one of 17 Texas counties to declare an invasion at the southern border, and in his soon-to-be-released book, Bensman details the impact this influx of illegal aliens is having on the county’s infrastructure.
Liberty County has been overwhelmed with 50,000 to 75,000 illegal alien families that have “absolutely swamped the school district and caused an irrevocable change throughout this little rural Texas county,” said Bensman, and this will bleed into most other U.S. towns and cities.
“We are in the midst of the greatest border crisis in U.S. history, by every metric,” said Bensman.
Most Americans don’t realize the full extent of the illegal immigration problem because mainstream media has spotty and partisan coverage of what is happening at the southern border, he said.
Open Border
Even with Title 42 in place, the Biden administration let in 40 percent of illegal border crossers in its first year, 70 percent in the second year, and when Title 42 ends, 100 percent will be admitted into the country, said Bensman.Mayorkas is preparing for a “tidal wave” of millions of more illegal aliens in the next two years, said Bensman.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose state shares over 1,200 miles of border with Mexico, believes that the Biden administration does not want to restrict entry to the United States and that Biden’s policies show the administration wants an open border.
Abuse of Asylum Laws
Immigration Advocates are celebrating the end of Title 42 because they say they want more humane treatment for those who are seeking asylum from persecution, but Bensman says his investigations show migrants are largely coming for economic opportunities.American lawyers and nongovernmental organizations are at the border enabling illegal aliens to abuse the asylum laws by instructing them on what to say when they speak to border security, said Bensman.
“People who are crossing the border in this crisis understand—and the people that want them to cross understand—the vitality, the crucial function that asylum plays in enabling this mass migration. You just have to say ‘I want asylum,’ and you’re in,” said Bensman.
Bensman argues that the current asylum system needs to be suspended and overhauled to close any loopholes that are being abused.
In the course of his covering the U.S. southern border and asylum laws, Bensman has found that a large percentage of migrants do not meet the criteria for asylum because they are not being persecuted in their home countries. Rather, they want to work in the United States.
“The asylum law was put in place for people who are fleeing North Korean gulags or Jews fleeing a Nazi situation,” said Bensman. “Nobody wants to live in some of these war-torn countries, but if you are crossing 10 other perfectly safe countries first, to get here, your argument that you’re coming for asylum is deeply undermined.”
The Haitian Example
Bensman cites the fact that the vast majority of Haitians who crossed the border into the United States in 2022 had already claimed asylum in Brazil and Chile, where they were secure. Before turning themselves in to CBP, they threw away their IDs so they could claim asylum in the United States.“Those governments gave Haitians full residency, full work authorization, and there actually was work. They were making money,” said Bensman.
There is proof of this in the number of ID cards that are discarded at the border, and by many of the Haitians’ own accounts that Bensman heard.
The Del Rio Bridge incident—when 15,000 Haitians showed up at the same time and camped under the bridge—was a problem for the Biden administration because it was right before the midterm elections. To solve this politically sensitive issue, the Biden administration arranged for them to be airlifted back to Haiti.
“The worst nightmare for those particular Haitians was to be returned to Haiti,” said Bensman. In order to create the conditions where Haiti would accept the migrants’ return, the Biden administration “installed” Dr. Ariel Henry as Haiti’s leader “because he agreed to take the Haitians from that camp,” Bensman said.
“When the first ones hit the tarmac, the cell phone selfies got going, and those Haitians fled by the thousands south, back into Mexico, to escape even the possibility of ending up back in Haiti.”
A New Theology
In the last 50 years, an ideology has taken root in the progressive wing of the United States, said Bensman, which does not believe in borders or national sovereignty, and to which the Biden administration adheres.It’s an ideology “that holds that traditional, national borders are an anachronism, that they are obsolete. It’s an ideology, and it’s so profound now that it’s almost like a religion,” he said.
This ideology has never been a part of the mainstream Democrat party but rather has been a fringe minority that wants to abolish immigration laws, detentions, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said Bensman. This faction of the left became more energized after Trump was elected, and after Bernie Sanders lost the Democrat primary for the second time, he endorsed Biden, enabling his faction to influence policies.
“The liberal progressives gained control of the immigration and the border portfolio. Those people come from an immigrant advocacy industrial complex,” said Bensman, adding that DHS is part of the complex.
“Alejandro Mayorkas … is a new theologian. This is his religion. He comes from that segment of the coalition,” said Bensman. Mayorkas has “parroted” the fringe left’s demands and has repeatedly stated that the administration is creating “legal pathways” for immigrants, Bensman said.
Secret Deals
Bensman said the Biden administration has cut secret deals with south American countries that are en route to the United States to make it easier and faster for migrants to get to the southern border.The Epoch Times reached out to Mayorkas’s office for comment.
The Biden administration has also made agreements with the Mexican government that will “provide legal permission to cross at a port of entry,” in coordination with the American government, Bensman said. “And once they do that, they are then given permission to work and to go anywhere in the country that they want until one day, they might apply for asylum,” said Bensman.
Irrespective of the fact that most Americans don’t understand how and why the U.S. immigration system works the way it does, it is still affecting their lives, said Bensman.
“I’m hoping that the book, my last chapter, will open some eyes as well, as to what this really looks like, this kind of transformational impact from this crisis.”
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