Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has a solution for America’s declining birth rate. “Now more than ever, we’re short of workers, we have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to,” Senator Schumer said. “The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the DREAMers and – all of them. Cause our ultimate goal is to help the DREAMers but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented immigrants.”
Senator Schumer is selling the American people down the river. He believes that only by welcoming and embracing all immigrants, including the many millions of illegal immigrants now residing in the United States, can we “have a great future in America.” Turning today’s illegal immigrants, which far exceed 11 million, into tomorrow’s dependable voters for Democrat candidates will be great for the Democratic Party’s future. But Senator Schumer’s idea of rolling out a red carpet for today’s illegal immigrants on their “path to citizenship” will only incentivize millions more immigrants to cross the open border illegally into the United States. Say goodbye to America’s national sovereignty and respect for the rule of law.
A federal judge, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, has just issued a ruling that will accelerate our nation’s decline by putting the kibosh on the continued use of Title 42 expulsion authority. Judge Sullivan did agree to allow the Biden administration to take five more weeks to resolve any logistical issues arising from ending Title 42 authority, but it is only a temporary reprieve. It has been estimated that as many as 18,000 illegal immigrants will flood across the U.S.-Mexico border every day once Title 42 is no longer available to use.
Title 42 delegates authority to the executive branch to immediately expel for public health reasons immigrants at the border without first having to hear the immigrants’ purported asylum claims. Both the Trump administration and the Biden administration have used this authority since March 2020 to expel more than 2.3 million migrants at the U.S. border with Mexico. The purpose has been to save Americans from the further spread of the deadly coronavirus brought into the country by illegal immigrants. But Judge Sullivan has ruled that the continued use of Title 42 authority must stop before the end of this year.
Judge Sullivan decided that further use of Title 42 expulsion authority would be “arbitrary and capricious,” even though the deadly coronavirus is still very much with us in mutated forms. What makes this all the more dangerous to Americans is that illegal immigrants admitted into the United States and remaining in the country are not regularly tested or vaccinated. But the judge was dismissive of such concerns.
“Defendants have not shown that the risk of migrants spreading COVID-19 is ‘a real problem,’” Judge Sullivan wrote.
It is not the defendants’ job to prove a negative. Besides, current data comparing the weekly average of new cases in the U.S. for the week ending October 17, 2022 with the weekly average of new cases for the week ending November 17, 2022 shows an increase. People are still dying and being hospitalized because of COVID-19.
Illegal immigrants entering the country are certainly not immune to the disease. Far from it. Who knows how many of the millions of illegal immigrants now in the U.S. and entering the U.S. in the future are carriers of the virus? Why should Americans have to take a chance that they will be exposed to any illegal immigrant carriers and get sick? Judge Sullivan has no answers to these questions. His decision to end the protection provided by Title 42’s expulsion authority is “arbitrary and capricious.”
Judge Sullivan is the same judge who refused to dismiss the case against retired three-star General Michael T. Flynn, former President Trump’s then-national security adviser, even after the Department of Justice moved to drop its charges against him. Judge Sullivan tried to play the role of a prosecutor in demanding to prolong that case on his own initiative, to which a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said no. Now, Judge Sullivan is trying to act like a health expert as he cavalierly dismisses the threat of COVID-19 to the American people, including from transmission of the virus by untested, unvaccinated illegal immigrants.
Judge Sullivan pointed to masking or testing as less restrictive measures than expulsions under Title 42. “Defendants failed to consider another ‘obvious and less drastic alternative’ and give a reasoned explanation for its rejection of the alternative,” Judge Sullivan wrote.
It is easy for the judge to pontificate without his being responsible for the consequences. Judge Sullivan failed to consider how ineffective masking might be, let alone how to enforce a masking requirement once illegal immigrants are released from detention and sent on their way. The same goes for testing. Even if all the immigrants could be tested at border facilities, wouldn’t that become no more than a one-and-done screening for COVID-19? Probably so, since regular monitoring of the immigrants, once they are released, to ensure they continue being tested or vaccinated will not be feasible.
Even regular testing of illegal immigrants before they are allowed to board commercial airplanes, for example, has proven to be woefully inadequate.
The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report dated May 18, 2022, which criticized how the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) handled the testing of newly arrived immigrants for COVID-19.
“ERO transported migrants without ensuring all migrants were COVID-19–negative before transport and did not retain complete transport records,” the report concluded. “These practices risk exposing other migrants, ERO staff, and the general public to COVID-19. It is imperative that ERO establish and enforce policies and procedures to mitigate public health concerns regarding COVID-19 or other future pandemics.”
Given the grossly inadequate resources readily available, the testing of all illegal immigrants at border facilities is obviously not a realistic option. Continuing to invite millions of untested and unvaccinated illegal immigrants into the country and releasing them to live anywhere they want will risk the further spread of the coronavirus. Keeping Title 42 in place would significantly diminish this risk, but Judge Sullivan is recklessly taking this option away.
Only Congress, not Judge Sullivan, can appropriate sufficient funding to bolster the resources needed to have a chance of conducting fully comprehensive testing and vaccination programs. But tax-paying Americans are under no obligation to write a blank check to subsidize the screening and vaccinations for unending flows of illegal immigrants into the country when there is a less burdensome alternative available. Simply stop the flow of potential illegal immigrant carriers into the country by continuing to use the expulsion authority granted by Title 42 until the threat of further spreading of COVID-19 is over. Judge Sullivan’s irresponsible ruling should be appealed, including all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Returning to Senator Schumer’s suggestion that giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship will solve America’s shortage of workers, there are far better solutions than turning the U.S. into a lawless, third-world country.
How about ending giveaway programs that make it more worthwhile for some people to stay home than to look for a job? And what about stopping to promote abortion on demand? The total number of abortions since the Roe v. Wade decision is in the range of 64,000,000 or more. Perhaps if many of those aborted babies were alive today to become working-age adults, they would have been able to share as Americans in the “great future in America” that Senator Schumer says only illegal immigrants can bring about.
