"It's About the Children!"
Establishment Hypocrisy on the US Border
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The pace of change in 2023 America is rapid and unprecedented, though the talking points for many issues are in desperate need of an upgrade.
A week ago, the Congress passed (220-209) the Choice Arrangement Act (H.R.3799), which proposes nuanced changes to Obamacare to reduce its burden on small business. Democrats lined up to pound their fists on the podium with talking points that were crafted in 2008. If you like your doctor, you can keep him … maybe.
Then Thursday, the House agreed to House Resolution 461, “Condemning the use of elementary and secondary school facilities to provide shelter for aliens who are not admitted to the United States.” The resolution is in response to NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to house illegal and unvetted border crossers in the gymnasiums and multi-purpose rooms of the city's school children. On this, Democrat talking points are also tired.
We heard about the “disastrous” border policies of the previous administration – such as “the Trump Era of snatching children away” from their parents, according to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). We also heard that Republicans hate children and want to take federal funding away from their schools, that the border crisis is a natural disaster akin to hurricanes and earthquakes, and that the imperative is humanitarian – but poses no risk to national security.
The resolution is largely ceremonial and enables political posturing for both sides, and it passed along party lines (223-201). Democrats did update their border messaging slightly, repeatedly accusing Republican governors of “trafficking” migrants by sending them to sanctuary cities. This unintentional honesty from Democrats is refreshing. Ceremonial resolutions aside, the US Southern Border is undeniably a hub for trafficking — and under so-called President Biden, the problem has exploded.
The ‘Humanitarian’ Crisis
As I wrote in February in 2021, from October 2020 through February 2021, US Border Patrol saw a 128% in encounters with illegals at the US Southern Border. When the government and media—but I repeat myself—inexplicably declared that Joe Biden got 81 million votes on November 4, 2020, border activity surged. And it hasn’t stopped.
According to the US Customs & Border Protections statistics on encounters at the US Southern Border, border agent encounters with migrants exploded in the first year of Biden’s administration and continue to trend upward. In the final year of President Trump’s first term, there were 458,088 encounters. When Biden took over, that number more than tripled to 1,734,686. In 2022, there were 2,378,944, or more than five times the number of encounters than during the Trump administration. In 2023, the YTD numbers are up more than 100,000 over the same period last year.
We’re meant to believe all these people are asylum-seekers, fleeing persecution and climate-related displacement. We are told that opposing the unrestricted and unvetted entry of all of them makes you a heartless bigot who hates children and the earth. As Rep. Jackson Lee said, “This is about the children.”
She’s not wrong, but she’s also not right in the way she asserts. It is about the kids, but according to the CBP demographics, kids represent the smallest number of migrants.
The vast majority of encounters with law enforcement at the US Southern Border are with single adults. In 2022, this number shattered records, with 1,663,278 encounters with single adults—69.92% of total encounters. This was 557,353 more single adults than crossed in 2021, but 1,310,110 more single adults than crossed in the final year of the Trump Administration.
In comparison, unaccompanied, single minors represented just 6.37% of encounters at the US Southern Border in 2022. That percentage was larger in 2021 (8.47%) under Biden and in 2020 (7.26%) under Trump. Migrant encounters are up, but encounters with children as a percentage of the whole are down. You will also notice in the chart above that data for Accompanied Minors data is missing. We will come back to that.
This is Absolutely About the Kids
The first thing to understand about migrant children is that the US government does not individually track them. By law, federal authorities in CBP, ICE, DHS and HHS are not allowed to photograph or fingerprint minor children, so there is no way to validate the aggregated numbers of migrant children provided by US Customs & Border Protection.
The next thing to understand is that federal authorities contract with NGOs complete the cartels’ most expensive and dangerous leg of the trafficking journey. This may sound impossibly incompetent, but it’s a fact.
Here’s how it happens:
A large group of illegal migrants with men, women and children cross the border onto US soil and sit down. They sit down and just wait. Eventually the US Border Patrol finds them and, as processing large groups of migrants takes time and effort, they call in backup. Pretty soon, all the local resources are occupied with the large group of migrant “families.”
Side note: At this point, the more nefarious and criminal illegal aliens walk across the border with whatever supplies, materials, and motives brought them to our once free land. Since they’re just asylum seekers fleeing climate persecution or whatever, I’m sure it’s all good things.
Back to the “families.”
When Border Patrol processes these groups, they find that they often aren’t related. The children, however, almost always already have family in the country. What luck! And what are the odds?
Border Patrol hands the children off to the American bureaucrats at DHS, and DHS reunites these children with their “families,” using leftist NGOs as part of the process. In so doing, the US government is completing the final – and most dangerous and expensive – part of the human trafficking journey at the expense of the US taxpayers.
Cartels have outsourced nearly all of the risk in a HUMAN TRAFFICKING OPERATION to the one system on earth where accountability goes to die: The US Government.
As one frustrated border agent shared with me back in February 2021, “This doesn’t benefit anyone in the US, but it is a boon to human smugglers. They now only need to make arrangements for travel to the US/Mexico border. Uncle Sam completes the job for them. Our border agents have been co-opted to complete the human smuggling cycle.”
Who are the Accompanied Minors?
My sources in Border Patrol tell me now that, during the Trump Administration, Accompanied Minors were always reported as a carve out of FMUA, or family units with minor children. But under Biden, you can see that data for Accompanied Minors is missing.
Initially, you would assume that the Accompanied Children are included in the FMUA numbers being reported, but a closer look at the data casts doubt.
According to the US Customs & Border Patrol data, the number of migrants categorized as family units, or FMUA, was 560,646 — 23.57% of total encounters for that year. To be categorized as a family unit, you must have minor children with you. The obvious question, then, is how many of those 560,646 individuals in family units were children?
We should be able to look at the chart and see the carve out, but they’ve inexplicably stopped reporting that data point. Instead, we can change the search parameters to only report the number of Accompanied Minors:
When we do that, however, the results defy belief.
According to the US Customs & Border Protection statistics, of the 560,646 individuals that made up family units, only 2,963 of those individuals are minors.
Interesting families.
Now, I know what you’re thinking:
There must be some problem with the tracking methods and reporting of data. I’m sure that’s true. But there is no question that any reporting issues are the result of changes made by the Biden Administration. During the Trump Administration, Accompanied Minors were reported as a carve out of family units. Under Biden, they are not – at least not transparently or believably.
So, what changed?
Open Societies Exploiting Children
While the establishment cries about the “humanitarian crisis” at the border, it’s important to realize that the effort is going according to plan. In May of this year, the Daily Caller published “Soros Funded A Biden Center Report On Letting More Refugees Into The US. Some Of Its Authors Now Work For Biden.”
“Several authors of a Soros-funded Penn Biden Center report advocating for increasing the number of refugees allowed into the country now work in the Biden administration, handling immigration and national security policy.
“The Penn Biden Center and the National Conference on Citizenship published a 2020 report, which was funded by a $259,050 grant from Open Society Foundations, recommending increasing the number of refugees permitted to come to the U.S. and easing restrictions on refugee eligibility, actions the White House has since taken.” — The Daily Caller
According to this reporting, the collaboration between the Penn Biden Center and the Open Society Foundation included:
Ariana Berengaut, who is now Senior Advisor to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
Rosanna Kim, who is now Senior Advisor for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM)
Eric Hysen, who is now Chief Information Officer for DHS. Fun fact – the Chief Information Office is responsible for the data and metrics … the data and metrics that were inexplicably diluted and muddied since Biden assumed the White House.
Given that the report's authors are now working at the highest levels of our government – and one of them has authority over DHS data – it’s unsurprising that the policies outlined in their report are now being implemented by the Biden Administration.
From the source:
“Of the report’s recommendations highlighting how the U.S. government should expand the refugee system, several proposals have been implemented during the authors’ tenures in the Biden administration, including increasing cooperation with the United Nations (UN) to work with the U.S. to bring in more refugees, increasing the number of Latin American and Caribbean refugees and expanding refugee processing in the Western hemisphere. For instance, the report recommended raising the refugee cap to 125,000, which President Joe Biden later did in fiscal years 2022 and 2023. The Trump administration had previously slashed the refugee cap to 15,000, a historic low for the U.S. government, which Biden increased to 62,500 in fiscal year 2021.”
The efforts of the Biden Administration – and the Penn Biden Center and the Open Society Foundation – undermine US national security and sovereignty through the deceptive expansion of illegal immigration.
They may also explain Sara Carter’s terrifying reporting last month that Border Patrol encounters with Chinese migrants are up by 393%.
“Most of the Chinese migrants encountered by Border Patrol so far in fiscal year 2023 are single adults, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. Legitimate asylum claims must be based on persecution due to religious affiliation, membership in a social group, race, nationality and political party affiliation. It’s also possible that some Chinese migrants are nefarious actors, [Gordon] Chang said. ‘“When I first saw that the surge in Chinese migrants, that’s the thought that came to my mind that these are either Ministry of State Security agents or Chinese military, who are coming to this country to commit acts of sabotage against the US.’” — Sara A. Carter
In her piece, Carter sounded the alarm about increased risk from Chinese spy activity and, just a month later, we learn that US Customs and Border Patrol has intercepted ‘several high-value targets from China,’ as well from Russia and other nations hostile to the US.
If you wanted to move troops into America, how would you do it?
Who Benefits From Biden’s Border Con?
The data about the border directly undermines the narrative about the border.
Democrats like Rep Sheila Jackson Lee say, “This is about the children!” while pursuing US immigration policies that enable the further exploitation of migrant children. Worse, they oppose policy changes that would provide protections for migrant children, allow them to be tracked and checked upon, and reduce their chances of ending up in modern American slavery.
Even worse, the Democrat (really, communist) run Executive Branch enabled changes to immigration data and reporting systems that reduce the system’s transparence and make trafficking children much easier.
Why would anyone muddy these metrics? Who would benefit?
First, those on the supply side — those trafficking children for labor, medical testing, organ harvesting, sex crimes, and more – benefit by diluting the number of children at the border. Unreliable metrics allow them to move kids undetected. This includes cartels, coyotes, leftist NGOs and, as previously discussed, the US homeland bureaucracy.
Second, those on the demand side – that is, people buying trafficked children – also benefit immensely. Unreliable metrics allow these predators to obtain children without concern that anyone will come looking. Remember, there are no fingerprints or photographs of migrant children. They are the most vulnerable and invisible members of our society.
These beneficiaries have much to lose; why do you think we haven’t seen the Epstein client list?
Finally, the Biden Administration (and its globalist allies) benefit on multiple domains. The have motive to conceal the realities of the US Southern Border — and they also have the means and opportunity.
If you want to conceal the realities of the trafficking operation, you paint the border as a humanitarian crisis. But to paint the border as a humanitarian crisis, you must combat the fact that the lions’ share of the “refugees” are single, military-aged adults.
You need children and family units front and center in your narrative, which means casting doubt on the reliability of the data that shows the opposite. You must shift public focus away from 393% increases with messaging about compassion and climate and kids in cages. You need a CIO that can tweak reporting systems, policy advisors that can tweak processes, and allies in the State Department who can further influence policy, drive support, and deliver action.
And that’s exactly what we see.
Whether redefining ‘refugees,’ trafficking humans, or moving troops, the beneficiaries of the Biden Administration’s border policies are the global ‘open society’ regime, its willing puppets, and its useful idiots.
And they are all about the children.
Badlands Media articles and features represent the opinions of the contributing authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Badlands Media itself.
Ashe in America hosts Culture of Change on Badlands Media, Sundays at 6PM ET. If you enjoyed this contribution to Badlands Media, please consider checking out more of her work for free at Ashe in America.
This should be front page news. Not just on MSM news, but to alternative media platforms as well. I guess we are so damn busy fighting amongst ourselves that we have lost our way. The thought of what is happening to these “ghost” children is sickening! I’m getting tired of waiting around for someone decent in our government (are there any?)to demand that protections be put in place for them.
We need a national call out to all MOTHERS! We had MADD.... why not mothers against trafficking? Where is the outrage? Families are being attacked by all sides these days... we live in SAD ASS times. Here’s your MAGA.... Mothers Against Governmental ABUSE!
Some great hypocrisy. I was there for over a year during Trump's administration . There was no "snatching children" actually the cages were started by George Bush and continued by Obamanation. We knew that they weren't 'families' because mama, daddy should have been mami, papi.