DT today:
Tim Blair: Joe Biden is messing up important US immigration policy
As Australians know all too well, immigration policies based on mistaken notions of humanitarianism will inevitably lead to economic chaos, danger and deaths, writes Tim Blair.
Showing they understood deterrents just as little as they understood incentives, various Labor and Greens identities predicted this couldn’t be done. The “stop the boats” slogan could never be translated into effective strategies to combat determined people smugglers, they warned.
Then the boats stopped.
The success of those deterrents led to Australia being hailed by refugee-swamped Europe as a brilliant example of border protection in action.
Perhaps US President Joe Biden might consider examining Australia’s success.
He’s presently faced with a daily Rudd-load of refugees turning up on the US border.
“Border agents encountered a migrant at the border about 78,000 times in January — more than double the rate at the same time a year ago.”
Refugees were hitting the southern border in large numbers even during Donald Trump’s reign, but their volume has increased since Biden took over. And why might that be so?
Because Biden in his presidential campaign gave them incentives.
“I would, in fact, make sure … we immediately surge to the border all those people who are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard,” candidate Joe said in 2019.
Taking Biden at his word, refugees — or claimed refugees; some are arriving from such unlikely starting points as Yemen, Ukraine and Serbia — surged in their thousands.
Just in case Biden forgot why this was happening, many arrivals helpfully wear Biden T-shirts.
Remarkably, Biden last week denied ever encouraging this.
“The idea that Joe Biden said, ‘Come’ — because I heard the other day that they’re coming because they know I’m a nice guy. Here’s the deal: They’re not,” the President said.
Oh, yes they are. “Biden promised us that everything was going to change,” one refugee told The New York Times. “He is going to be a good president for migrants.”
But on the issue of illegals, Biden is beat. Not only is he on record encouraging arrivals, but his government is also tilting policies towards incentives and away from deterrents.
Construction of Trump’s wall ended. That’s the best possible signal you could send to people smugglers who are now far more active in Mexico than they ever were in the waters between Indonesia and Australia.
Deadly consequences are similarly observed. This month, two vehicles overloaded with illegal arrivals crossed into the US through a 3m hole in the border wall police believe was cut by people smugglers.
One of the vehicles, a five-seat Ford SUV, carried 25 people. Thirteen were killed 50km into their US journey in a collision with a semi-trailer.
The other vehicle, with 19 people aboard, caught fire. Thankfully, its occupants escaped uninjured.
As Australia knows, death and ruin are invariably the outcomes when immigration policies are outsourced to smugglers. Providing incentives to those criminals should itself be considered a criminal act.
But Biden’s policies do have their supporters, just as the Rudd-Gillard border chaos had its fans in Australia.
That support generally comes from those who are economically insulated from the problems created by uncontrolled immigration.
An incentive is involved. Those voters are motivated by feelings of generosity and humanitarianism.
It’s just a pity about all the corpses.
Poll
