In his first days in office, President Joe Biden stopped building the border wall, ended the Remain in Mexico program that kept alleged asylum seekers out until they had proved their case, and started mass-releasing people caught illegally entering the U.S. He also perverted the purpose of immigration parole to bring tens of thousands more aliens in every month. Despite his attempt to downplay the problem and shirk responsibility in Thursday’s State of the Union, these policies have led directly to our current border crisis.

Since Biden took office in 2021, the U.S. has let in around as many inadmissible, unvetted aliens as the entire population of El Salvador. In Fiscal 2023 alone. Border Patrol caught 15,267 people at the border who had criminal convictions. These would almost all be convictions in U.S. courts, since we don’t have access to most countries’ criminal records.  

But how many criminals are among the 600,000 or more “gotaways” that sneak through every year, or have been released or paroled because their criminal records were unknown to U.S. officials?

Conservatives have warned for years that Biden’s open borders and mass releases would bring increased crime and cost American lives. We pointed to places like New York City, where corrupt progressive prosecutor Alvin Bragg regularly releases illegal aliens from jail without bail, as he did to eight young men accused of attacking police officers this January.  

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We cited cities like Chicago, where just last month police found a stash of over 500 fake identity cards when arresting a group of Mexicans that were hiring Venezuelan illegal immigrants to shoplift from stores on the Miracle Mile.

Biden’s immigration-driven crime wave is now arriving in America’s suburbs and small towns with devastating results. The past two weeks made the consequences of unchecked open borders clear: crime, chaos and death in the American heartland.

The murder of nursing student Laken Riley in Athens, Georgia, by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela with outstanding charges was one of the first stories to raise the alarm in late February. But it’s far from the only one.

In Langley Park, Maryland, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador (already ordered deported by a judge) was charged with killing a toddler in a shootout. In Kenner, Louisiana, an illegal immigrant from Honduras (already wanted for raping a 14-year-old girl) was charged with stabbing a victim he was robbing.  

In Campbell County, Virginia, an illegal alien from Venezuela was charged for sexual assault of a minor. In Provo, Utah, a Guatemalan illegal alien working with a fake Social Security card was arrested on charges of raping an 11-year-old girl. 

This litany of violence belies claims that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than American citizens. But even if that were true—and studies from England, Germany, the European Union, France, Sweden, and even South Korea suggest that it’s not—it wouldn’t change a thing, because every single crime committed by an illegal immigrant is totally preventable. Indeed, all the crimes above were only possible because open-border policies allowed the perpetrators to enter or remain in the U.S. illegally.

Rather than change their tune, however, the Biden administration continues to evade responsibility and pass the risk to everyday Americans. The result: not only a mounting toll of victims, but little towns across America that are struggling to balance their budgets and provide public resources to their own people because they are being overwhelmed by illegal immigrants.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The Biden administration has the power to immediately alleviate the crisis—which he both caused and exacerbated—and put a stop to preventable migrant crime. 

First, Biden should immediately end his lawless abuse of immigration parole. He has misused this limited power, conceived as an exception to allow in only a few people a year, to bring 36,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and tens of thousands more from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other countries around the world.  

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None of these people—more often than not single, young men—are subject to a criminal background check in their home country. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas simply takes them at their word, which clearly is a high-risk gamble.  

Second, all law enforcement in the United States, from federal to state, local, and tribal, should be required to report the immigration status of people they arrest. That way, the American people can actually know the risks Biden is asking us to run. Hiding the truth is nothing short of insulting.

Third, Mayorkas should rescind his enforcement priorities memo and allow ICE to get on with their job of arresting and deporting alien criminals without burdensome administrative obstacles. 

Finally, Biden should enforce laws already on the books by detaining illegal border crossers or having them remain south of the border until their immigration cases are concluded.

By doing these simple things, with powers he already has, Biden could protect American citizens in small towns and big cities alike. But don’t hold your breath, the Biden administration has been facilitating mass illegal immigration through virtually open borders from day one. They won’t change now.