It’s meant to be a tug-at-your-heartstrings event. Once a year, Mexican families get to reunite with one another across the southern border for 5 minutes. The event is to highlight the difficulties suffered by families separated at the border. What it sounds like is propaganda pushed by pro-open border immigration activists.

A makeshift stage in the middle of the Rio Grande River was constructed for the 10th “Hugs Not Walls” event sponsored by the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR). Families talked, hugged, and cried for the allotted five minutes together before leaving to allow the next group on the stage. Border Patrol agents watched them from a distance to make sure the blue-shirted Mexican members went back to their side of the river. U.S. residents were wearing yellow t-shirts.

This year the event almost didn’t happen, ironically, because of the Biden border crisis. With the halt to Title 42 coming this week, a barrier wall of barbwire fence has been erected by the Texas National Guard. Troops put up the wall which extends for miles, which included the planned reunion point. So, the location had to shift at the last minute near the Texas-New Mexico border. If there were not thousands of migrants waiting across the border in Mexico to flood into the United States on May 11, there would not be a need for the barbwire fence. But, they are there and the fence is a tool for crowd control at the southern border.

Since 2016, the event has facilitated physical contact between blood relatives separated by their inability to cross the border due to immigration status.

The reunions bring joy to those estranged by an international border and are meant to draw attention to the need for U.S. immigration reform, said Fernando Garcia, executive director of BNHR.

“This is an event of love, of humanity, but it is also a protest against inhumane policies that our governments in the United States and Mexico are implementing at the border,” Garcia said.

The immigration activist had the nerve to complain about the “militarization” of the border. He is arranging for illegal aliens living in the United States thanks to the generosity of American taxpayers to enjoy a quick visit with family who live back in Mexico and he unironically complains about security measures that had to be taken on the border. You can’t make this stuff up. This kind of arrogance is what turns off so many Americans from the plight of those who come here illegally. America is a welcoming country, the most generous in the world. All that is asked is that laws are followed. That is not being done and we are to be made to feel bad for border security measures, as few as there are in place under this administration.

“We have never held an event under such conditions, with the border being so militarized. I don’t think governments realize what they are doing, which is not only separating families but hurting our community’s way of life,” Garcia said, adding the State of Texas and some in the federal government seem to be at war with migrants.

Several city and county officials, as well as the mayor of Juarez, showed up to support the event.

One Mexican citizen living illegally in the United States said she would like something similar to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 to be a part of a new immigration reform bill. That won’t happen today and she can thank the Democrats for that. Reagan made the deal with Democrats where he granted blanket amnesty to illegal aliens in exchange for an agreement on employers having to verify employee immigration status. It was to be illegal for employers to hire or recruit illegal immigrants knowingly. Democrats in the Senate at the time did not carry through with their end of the deal. Republicans in office now know how toxic any mention at all of amnesty is, as it should be.

Democrats are not to be trusted. They see future voters. The Biden border crisis is intentional. Spare us the propaganda of using separated families and 5-minute visits to demand open borders. The “militarized” border hasn’t stopped the flood of migrants crossing the border.