Where's the progressive outrage? A thousand migrants under a bridge in Texas, largest group yet

AP Photo/Gregory Bull

The Biden border crisis is still escalating out of control. The latest story is that about 1,000 illegal migrants are hunkered down under the Anzalduas Bridge in Mission, Texas. There is nowhere to house them as they are processed by Border Patrol. This is being called the largest group ever to be held in this location.

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We’ve posted countless stories about the Biden border crisis. The Rio Grande Valley is overwhelmed to the point that Governor Abbott has written emergency declarations and deployed troops from the Texas National Guard as well as DPS to help Border Patrol with law enforcement. Nothing has changed, in fact it is getting worse in some areas. Has the latest pictures of 1,000 people crammed under a bridge brought wailing and tears from concerned progressives outraged that the U.S. government is allowing this kind of humanitarian crisis to continue? Not that I’ve seen so far today. It’s radio silence from the likes of AOC and her Squad sisters who made a big deal about illegal migration during the Trump administration. They stood in parking lots and cried for the press as cameras rolled.

Meanwhile, in McAllen, Texas, buses are arriving every thirty minutes loaded full with migrants apprehended by Border Patrol and then released to take buses wherever they can go.

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Fox, by the way, continues to do yeoman’s work in the RGV covering the Biden border crisis. The other big cable networks? Not so much. They are too busy pretending there is no border crisis to cover for Biden. Nothing the Biden administration is doing is working. Joe Biden should reinstate the policies used during the Trump administration and close up the border. Frankly, it may just be too late now. Even in the hottest months of the year, when traditionally movement slows, there is no end in sight. This year’s border crisis is like no other we have seen.

Here’s a kicker – the Biden administration quietly put into their proposed immigration plan that Congress should allocate money to pay for private lawyers for illegal migrants. This is the first time any administration has proposed such action. More “fundamental change”, Joe?

The Biden administration aims to spend millions of dollars to cover the cost of lawyers for migrants who have illegally entered the country, a prospect that has infuriated immigration restrictionists.

President Joe Biden proposed in his immigration plan released this week that Congress should make available $15 million to cover the costs of private lawyers for “families and vulnerable individuals,” with another $23 million to cover legal orientation programs administered by the Justice Department. The proposal, first outlined in Biden’s fiscal year 2022 budget, is the first time that an administration has proposed covering such an expense, and the White House has not shared additional information.

The $15 million in funding would only be enough to cover several thousand people, according to a study from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Immigration lawyers charge between $150 and $300 per hour.

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As with most of Biden’s ideas, there are no details in how exactly spending taxpayer money on private lawyers for illegal migrants would work.

They talk about providing legal representation to families and vulnerable individuals,” said Andrew Arthur, a former federal immigration judge from the York Immigration Court in Pennsylvania. “We don’t really know what that consists of, but it could be just families. It could be just women with children. I don’t know. The language is so vague — it’s problematic.”

Biden’s plan likely violates the Immigration Nationality Act. Remember when Biden was campaigning on being an experienced and knowledgeable lawmaker? Shouldn’t he know about such restrictions on taxpayer funds? I know. He doesn’t care, it sounds good to the open borders crowd.

Ries and Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, a group that advocates for tighter restrictions on immigration, pointed to a passage in the Immigration Nationality Act that they said bars the government from spending its own money on legal representation in immigration proceedings.

Section 292 of the law states that “in any removal proceedings before an immigration judge and in any appeal proceedings before the Attorney General from any such removal proceedings, the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented (at no expense to the Government) by such counsel, authorized to practice in such proceedings, as he shall choose.”

“An alien should pay for their own counsel, or there are many, many pro bono organizations and advocacy organizations that can represent them. The American taxpayer should not be paying for an attorney for someone who is removable,” said Ries.

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The argument is that legal American residents and citizens aren’t provided lawyers for immigration cases. Also, American citizens aren’t provided legal representation in other civil matters like divorce, for example, at taxpayer expense. “The idea that we would provide to aliens [representation] that we don’t provide to citizens is exceptional in and of itself,” said Ries. “It’s making removable aliens better off than U.S. citizens.” The Biden administration continues to choose illegal migrants over American citizens.

Supporters of open borders like the idea, of course, as they know it provides help for the illegal migrants. They claim having a lawyer will encourage migrants to show up for hearings. So far, only about 13% of those apprehended at the southern border have shown up for their hearings or even contacted an ICE office to schedule a hearing. Color me skeptical that this will work, either.

Migration Policy Institute Senior Fellow Muzaffar Chishti defended the plan, saying it would improve the chances that migrants show up to court.

“People who have legal counsel have a better chance of getting their claim successfully adjudicated, but more importantly, people who have legal counsel actually show up for the hearings,” said Chishti. “Not only will it improve the due process aspect of an asylum claim, but it also will make it more efficient.”

Biden promised to do things differently than the previous administration did in handling the southern border. He’s fulfilling that promise and that’s not a good thing for our country. It’s a humanitarian crisis, a public health crisis, and is a danger to our national security.

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Jazz Shaw 7:20 PM | March 18, 2024
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