How many illegal immigrants have entered the country in recent years?

It is impossible to know, and even the numbers given out in the media or by the government are all over the map. 

The short answer is millions upon millions. Just since Joe Biden became president, the number of illegal immigrants who have entered the country is larger than the population of 36 states. 

Or more. Who really knows?

Whatever the number actually is, we only hear about the ones who wind up in big cities like New York or Chicago unless some spectacular crime happens, as the one in Athens, Georgia, in which Laken Riley was murdered by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant who wandered the country committing crimes. 

What does the migrant crisis look like in practice? The population of a small midwestern town jumping by 10 percent in just two years. Police overwhelmed by domestic violence calls. Dead babies stuffed into cardboard boxes. An uptick in STDs in public schools. And of course: a…

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) February 27, 2024

But whether you hear about them or not, illegals have moved to every corner of the United States, often with the help of the US government, which flies them around the country. 

The Washington Free Beacon did a profile of one small town in Wisconsin and the terrible impact that illegal immigrant flood has had on the city. 

WHITEWATER, Wis.—The migrants began to trickle into Whitewater, a sleepy town of 15,000 an hour west of Milwaukee, toward the end of 2021.

Prior to their arrival, local news and political debates generally revolved around school fundraisers or the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's D3 athletics. Today, residents are focused on their 1,000 new neighbors, who mostly hail from Nicaragua and Venezuela and largely keep to the shadows because they lack official identification. Locals say the real number of migrants in the town could easily be double the number reflected in the police department's official statistics.

As the migrant crises in big cities like Chicago and New York receive national media attention, Whitewater residents can only laugh.

Greater Whitewater Committee president Jeffrey Knight is quick to point out that migrants have caused New York's population to grow by 2 percent, while Whitewater's population has grown by almost 10 percent in two years, almost entirely due to the southern border crisis. That would translate into more than 1.5 million new arrivals in New York.

An increase in population of 10% in two years, more or less. That is staggering and not driven by an economic boom as the Dakotas saw with the fracking revolution. The town was welcoming; a few people showed up and then let others know that it was a good place to come. And with cartel connections the word spread fast. 

Like Knight, all Whitewater residents who spoke to the Free Beacon prided themselves on their hospitality and did not express prejudice toward the town's growing foreign population. But those who live here say they feel the strain migration has placed on their town: schools rushing to hire English as a second language (ESL) teachers, emergency services overwhelmed with unintelligible calls reporting domestic violence, and health providers faced with a flurry of uninsured patients.

Responding to the influx of migrants has put the town in a $400,000 budget hole, a town official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Free Beacon.

"I haven't seen anyone who isn't welcoming, but you have to have blinders on to not see that there have been problems," said Michael Smith, who has lived in Whitewater for more than a decade. "Everything is relatively overwhelmed right now."

Opponents of illegal immigration are often slandered as xenophobes, racists who don white hoods at night to hunt frightened brown and black people out of irrational hate. What other motivation could we possibly have?

But that isn't true. It may be the case that in some far-distant future, these illegal immigrants will bring immeasurable economic and social benefits due to their incredible creativity and work ethic (likely not anytime soon). Still, right now, they are overwhelming a system that can't meet all their needs and costing the people who grew up and live here far more than they bring in. 

Right here, right now, illegal immigrants are an enormous drain on communities that are having trouble meeting the needs of the taxpayers whom the government is supposed to represent. When migrants show up, doing anything but take care of the influx becomes difficult.  Ask Mayor Adams about that. 

The strain is immense, and it's difficult to see how any benefits to the community from the influx of immigrants can outweigh the enormous costs, including in things like crime and healthcare, imposed on the communities forced to absorb people who bring little besides trouble. 

Whatever brought them, Whitewater's migrant population and its subsequent demographic transformation could offer a glimpse into the next stage of America's immigration saga. As lawmakers fight about what to do with the southern border, the rate of illegal border crossings shows no sign of slowing. With roughly 8.5 million illegal border crossings recorded since President Joe Biden took office, it is almost inevitable that more towns like Whitewater will see migrants flocking their way.

Once the migrants arrive, it is on the town to adapt. The hiring of new ESL teachers for Whitewater Public Schools has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars alone, one city official told the Free Beacon. Some students, the official said, have enrolled in Whitewater schools without knowing more than a few English words and phrases.

An official familiar with the issue says that at least 300 English ESL students are now enrolled in Whitewater Public Schools. That official also expressed concern about internal school reports of migrant students suffering from sexual abuse at home, as some live with distant relatives.

"You're setting up a disastrous situation," the individual said. "There's been an uptick in STDs and other sexual health issues."

But no other issue is as contentious as the town's growth in police responses. Two internal Whitewater Police Department slide shows obtained by the Free Beacon describe considerable strain on local law enforcement, with officers responding to calls that sound like something out of a police procedural.

For all the highfaluting rhetoric spit out at people insisting that "diversity is our strength," the people having to deal with the influx of people who not only weren't born here, aren't here legally and also don't share American values are having to pay the price for the social and economic discord being thrust on them. 

And the politicians don't seem to care. In Athens, the Mayor blamed Trump for the murder of Laken Riley and defended his city's "sanctuary" status. The Left is just fine with Americans suffering as long as they can recolonize America with a better class of immigrants. 

Neighboring counties have expressed concern about cartel activity among Whitewater's migrants. One slide describes the surge in fentanyl seizures in recent years.

"All states are now affected, just like southern border States," the slide reads. "Narcotics investigations are a substantial investment of an agency's resources including financial, manpower, physical assets, and time."

Law enforcement officials said last November that they had traced nearly $250,000 worth of funds back to drug cartels in just four months. In the words of one law enforcement official, the migrants perform "farm or factory labor during the day and cocaine sales at night."

Immigration has shot to the top of the list of concerns for Americans, according to Gallup and no doubt Biden will start blaming Republicans for blocking his tireless efforts to slow the flood of illegals into the country, but it's hard to believe anybody is buying what he will try to sell us. 

After three years of gaslighting us about how secure the border is, reversing course, at least rhetorically, will have no electoral impact. 

That is why the Left is investing so much effort in stacking the deck in other ways. The federal government has changed the rules to use student aid dollars to pay college students to become poll workers, including having them become "aides" who go into voting booths to help people having trouble voting. 

There will be a repeat of 2020, but on steroids, because Biden is in deep trouble. His immigration and economic policies have put him there, but rest assured, there is a plan to carry him across the finish line in first place. Whether it will work or not, we will have to see; without actually stuffing ballot boxes as they do in banana republics, the mountain may be too hard to climb. 

Of course, Biden is importing people from those banana republics into our country, and the only barrier to their voting is their own conscience. 

You decide how much faith we should put in their desire to be law abiding.