Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and others in the Biden administration are panicking about the coming surge of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border. A crisis situation is quickly developing and in order to get out in front of it, Mayorkas is reversing a policy of the Trump administration. Instead of purchasing airline tickets to fly illegal migrants back to Mexico, he instructed ICE to “purchase airplane tickets and cover other transportation costs for minors whose relatives are already living in the United States.”

The optics of Biden’s decision to reopen an illegal migrant housing facility for unaccompanied minors blew up in his face as progressives railed against kids in cages (shipping containers) just as they did during the Trump administration. I assume Status Quo Joe thought he’d be given a pass since he is in the process of undoing Trump’s successful policies in managing the southern border. So, in order to do some work on the optics, ICE’s Timothy Perry wrote agency leadership that “we need to prepare for border surges now.”

Since January, according to the Washington Post, “the number of [illegal immigrant] minors in federal custody has more than tripled to 7,000” and that Health and Human Services has instructed ICE to “purchase airplane tickets and cover other transportation costs for minors whose relatives are already living in the United States.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is “getting ICE to help transport migrants northward so they can be processed and released.”

I hope Mayorkas is at least negotiating a discount price on those airline tickets. The Trump administration purchased discounted tickets when it deported illegal migrants back to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The idea is to move them away from the border and further north, into other states for processing and release. Biden is moving a catch and release mandate outside of Texas as border towns are complaining of increased burdens of accomodating increasing numbers of illegal migrants, often just released into towns and cities without the ability to take care of themselves

Mexicans and Central Americans know that Joe Biden is not serious about border security. He is bending over backward to promote open borders. Human trafficking will flourish and coyotes will reap the financial rewards of exploiting desperate people. They’ve been told that unaccompanied minors will be taken care of and families often send them ahead, expecting them not to be turned away. By releasing them further into the country, just to ease crowding at the border, the possibility that they go to people with less than good intentions increases.

During an interview yesterday with Houston talk radio host Michael Berry, Senator Cruz blasted Anjandro Mayorkas as an extremist on immigration policy.

“The person that they [Biden administration] put in there, Alejandro Mayorkas, is extreme. And all of the early steps appear to be that the Biden administration is moving rapidly towards open borders. And, you know, you look at the Biden immigration plan, which was put out, which is the most radical immigration plan any administration has ever proposed in history. They have proposed allowing every single person who was deported from this country for the last four years to come back. […] They don’t make exceptions for criminals, for murderers, for rapists. I mean, it is utterly bizarre to have a federal administration refusing to enforce the law against violent criminals. And frankly, it makes our country more dangerous, and it makes Texas more dangerous. We are a nation of immigrants and there are wonderful people who come here and come here legally. There’s a right way to come. Today’s Democratic Party has been radicalized where they’re not even willing to enforce the law against violent criminals who are committing horrific crimes.”

The guy is bad news, as many conservatives understood during his confirmation process. Mayorkas comes in under the cloud of a past scandal.

A 2015 Homeland Security Inspector General report into allegations that Mayorkas “exerted improper influence” in assisting companies with obtaining employment visas when he served as Obama’s director of USCIS, the agency charged with administering the legal immigration system, found that he intervened in three cases “in ways that benefited the stakeholders” and led employees to “reasonably believe” that certain individuals were given “special access.” The report did not find that Mayorkas broke the law, and he has disputed the finding.

Biden and his administration know what is coming. Changing up the optics a bit at the border won’t solve the problem. Their solution just spreads the burden across the country.