This is the second time in the last two weeks that a top U.S. immigration official has resorted to begging people not to come.

I think it might be all they’re willing to do by way of “enforcement” to deter child migrants from entering the country.

You can tell border czar Roberta Jacobson is eager for this clip to circulate in Mexican and Central American media:

Here’s a clip of the second point where Roberta Jacobson implored migrants not to make the treacherous journey to the US.

“La frontera esta cerrada”
“The border is closed.” pic.twitter.com/yuuj1pffxM

— Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) March 10, 2021

The border is closed, she says. This is not the time, and is never the time, to try to enter the U.S. irregularly. (“Irregularly” may be a Team Biden euphemism for “illegally.”) But the border isn’t closed. We know that the number of unaccompanied minors arriving each day has been increasing over the past two weeks. We also know that the Border Patrol is so overwhelmed with managing that crisis and housing kids temporarily until HHS shelters can take them that it’s gotten easier for adults to cross the border illegally, with reports recently of more than a thousand people observed entering the U.S. in a single day.

With a pro-amnesty Democrat in the White House and the left wing of his base agitating against any sort of enforcement measures, this is the best opportunity immigrants have had in years to gain admission to the U.S. No amount of polite scolding by Jacobson is going to blind them to that fact.

Here’s why she’s eager for conditions to change. We’re still a month or two away from peak crisis and yet CBP is overwhelmed by the number of kids in their custody:

Thousands of migrant children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone are being held in US Border Patrol custody for more than four days on average in facilities unfit for minors, a dramatic increase from a week ago, according to internal documents reviewed by CNN…

On average, over the last 21 days, Customs and Border Protection encountered 435 unaccompanied children daily, up from a previous average of around 340 children.

They are staying in facilities for 107 hours on average, longer than the 72 permitted under US law. A week ago, the average time was 77 hours.

The obvious solution is for Biden to reinstate Trump’s rule authorizing the Border Patrol to use pandemic regulations to turn kids away, but progressives won’t tolerate that. So we’re stuck with Jacobson’s lame pleas, plus the news that the White House is restarting the “Central American Minors Program” in hopes of convincing families to keep their kids home and apply for admission from afar instead of sending them north. Anyone who understands U.S. politics would recognize that that’s a sucker’s move, though. If you show up on America’s doorstep, the open-borders wing of Biden’s base will make sure that you aren’t turned away.

There’s evidence that this issue is beginning to bite him politically, which is good news inasmuch as it’ll give him a reason to take enforcement more seriously. Today’s new CNN poll shows his approval very solid on handling the pandemic (60/34) and moderately healthy on subjects like helping the middle class (50/43) and the economy (49/44), where he’ll probably improve as COVID recedes and the new stimulus bill begins to do its thing. On only one subject was he more than two points underwater, though. Yep, immigration — where he stands at 43/49.

Minus 15 isn’t a good place to be among independents on any issue but particularly one with potential to dominate the public conversation in the near term depending on how bad things get at the border. Bear in mind too that these numbers probably aren’t driven mainly by what’s happening with unaccompanied migrant kids, which still isn’t on the radar for many Americans. It may be more of a reaction to that mega-amnesty bill Biden floated last month and which Congress has yet to take up. That is, he could be starting from a position of negative approval on immigration even before the border crisis has begun to make an impression with voters.

I’ll leave you with Jacobson becoming the latest Biden official to avoid using the word “crisis” to describe the situation he’s created at the border even though every day brings new news stories about America’s enforcement bureaucracy struggling to cope.