Op-Ed: Jay Town: Our border crisis is Kamala Harris’s fault, whether or not she was formally our ‘border czar’
Prior to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 20-minute photo-op at the southern border on her way to fundraisers in San Francisco and Las Vegas, she asked us to “imagine what [a mass deportation of illegal aliens] would look like and what that would be.”
Based on the data recently released by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it would be a marked improvement over Harris’s maligned border security record.
The Acting Director of ICE recently released data relating to “noncitizens on ICE’s docket convicted or charge with a crime.” Timed perfectly with Harris’s photo op, these numbers are devastating to Harris and further underscore the Biden-Harris administration’s abysmal record on illegal immigration.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson immediately went into damage control and released a statement claiming that “the data is being misinterpreted” and that the individuals included in the data “includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years.” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that the data has “been misrepresented” and is “confusing.”
The data in fact has not been misrepresented and it is not confusing.
According to ICE, here are just some of the facts regarding illegal immigrants who are not detained, walking amongst us, who have pending criminal charges, none of which can be misrepresented or confused:
221,141 pending criminal charges;
42,915 pending assault charges;
1,845 pending murder charges;
4,250 pending sexual assault charges;
13,846 pending narcotics charges;
3,266 pending burglary charges;
5,127 pending fraud charges;
12,397 pending larceny charges;
8,122 pending obstruction charges;
3,397 pending illegal weapons charges.
“Pending criminal charges” typically means “newly arrested.” These illegal aliens didn’t get here 40 years ago. They got here on Harris’s watch!
In fact, it gets worse for Vice President Harris. The following statistics are even more devastating for the Biden-Harris administration; ICE offered more facts about the criminal histories of those who are not detained currently, living inside of our borders:
425,431 illegal immigrants who are not detained are convicted criminals;
13,099 convicted of homicide;
14,301 convicted of burglary;
62,231 convicted of assault;
15,811 convicted of sexual assault;
56,533 convicted of drug offenses;
15,979 convicted of fraud;
18,234 convicted of larceny;
14,013 convicted of obstruction;
10,031 convicted of robbery;
13,423 convicted of illegal weapons offenses.
These convicted criminals are currently roaming around the United States; none of them should be here. This is Harris’s version of a “secure border.”
Of course, Harris says it is not her fault. She was not the “border czar,” as we came to know her until just recently. Forget that President Joe Biden put her in charge of the southern border on March 24, 2021 when he declared Harris would “lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle…in stemming the migration to our southern border.” She was mostly concerned with studying the “root causes” of illegal immigration from Central and South America. Incidentally, where is that report?
But regardless of title or job description, Kamala Harris is the Vice President of the United States, and border security and public safety have been in her portfolio since day one.
Harris has attempted to brush off her duties as vice president under the guise of some disputed title. The media’s complicity in allowing this is beyond the irresponsibly absurd. Kamala Harris’s record on illegal immigration speaks for itself but does not speak well.
In 2015, then-Attorney General Harris said that “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal,” despite federal law to the contrary. In 2019, then-Senator Harris advocated to abolish ICE altogether. During her failed 2020 campaign for President, Kamala favored decriminalizing illegal immigration.
In 2021, Vice President Harris feigned outrage over mounted Border Patrol agents capturing illegal immigrants, accusing the agents of crimes for whipping the illegal aliens with their reins. She adamantly referred to the conduct of the agents as “dangerous,” “wrong,” and “beyond an embarrassment” to the United States. Of course, her outrage was proven false!
In 2022, Kamala Harris declared that “the border is secure,” followed by laughter everywhere. In 2023, Biden and Harris proposed cutting CBP’s budget by nearly $500 million, proposed cutting ICE by $150 million, and used the $1.9 billion appropriated for border wall construction to instead fund “environmental restoration.” That same year over 2 million illegal immigrants crossed the southern border.
Now, in 2024, we learn of the hundreds of thousands of murderers, rapists, assailants, drug dealers, and thieves Harris has permitted to live among American citizens. As President Donald Trump has said many times, “they aren’t sending us their best.” Harris asked the question about what the mass deportation of illegal immigrants and faux asylum seekers would look like. The answer is obvious: a safer America.
Jay Town, is a former presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney, career prosecutor, United States Marine, and current Vice President and General Counsel at Gray Analytics.
