Former President Donald Trump has called the influx of immigrants into the country an “invasion,” which has triggered charges of demagoguery. But it’s an accurate description of our state of affairs about the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada.
Southern border encounters reported by the Border Patrol more than doubled from 2019 to fiscal 2023, while northern border encounters are up a staggering 600% since President Joe Biden took office. With nearly 10 million total immigrant crossings documented, immigrant crossings nationwide are at their highest point in history with little sign of abating.
And as the Washington Examiner repeatedly forewarned, this immigration influx is no coincidence. It began when Biden ripped up the two crucial diplomatic deals brokered by Trump that staunched the multinational flow to the U.S.-Mexico border.
First, the “Remain in Mexico” deal, which only allowed asylum-seekers into the United States once their applications were actually approved. And then, a series of “safe third country” agreements that forced immigrants to apply for asylum in the first safe country they reached. Now, an entire international economy is both incentivizing and funding a surge characterized by human and child trafficking, illegal drug trades, and the proliferation of potential terrorism.
For decades, the “how” of southern border crossings was straightforward enough. The overwhelming majority of immigrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border were either Mexican or citizens of the neighboring Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. But as of 2023, the majority of immigrants encountered at the southern border are not from Mexico or the Northern Triangle.
Africans crossing into the southern border increased by more than 300% in the past year alone, with a plurality hailing from Mauritania, an Islamic theocracy that still enslaves roughly 10% to 20% of its population. The New York Times did a deep dive into the “luxury route” to the U.S. from Africa, discovering that immigrants pay human traffickers about $10,000 for travel packages that are advertised on social media. One of the main thoroughfares between the hemispheres is now the flight between Istanbul and Bogota, thanks to the Colombian government’s decision to suspend visa requirements for a number of African citizens. Immigrants then fly to Nicaragua, where left-wing dictator Daniel Ortega has similarly slashed visa requirements in retaliation for American sanctions.
But El Salvador’s law-and-order President Nayib Bukele has proven a prime partner for the U.S., even as the Biden administration has hesitated to embrace the pro-Western Bukele. Late last year, Bukele imposed a $1,130 “airport improvement fee” on travelers from 57 largely African and Asian countries. The tariff has evidently succeeded in building up a backlog in the Bogota airport, where the New York Times reported, “People sleep in a corner, or kneel in Muslim prayer, using airplane blankets.”
Those aiming to cross from South to Central America by land can be similarly serviced by tourism packages advertised on social media. Human traffickers on TikTok advertise “safe passage 100% guaranteed” through the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap, the land bridge connecting Colombia to Panama. The terrain, which includes swamp, mountains, and forest, is so treacherous that it comprises the only gap of the Pan-American highway, yet even so, more than half a million immigrants attempted to cross it by foot and boat last year, including more than 3,000 unaccompanied minors.
Belated efforts by the Biden administration to compel Colombia into halting boat trafficking across the Darien briefly went into effect, with Colombian law enforcement arresting two captains from the companies transporting immigrants. But after a five-day strike by the companies, the boat companies resumed, a relief to the Colombian towns that claim they lack the infrastructure to sustain the buildup of immigrants waiting to cross the Darien. (In a tragic note unrelated to the economic story, the sexual abuse of immigrants crossing the Darien is up sevenfold, according to Doctors Without Borders.)
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There are indeed “root causes” of the immigrant crisis, but they aren’t the ones Vice President Kamala Harris seemed to blame at the start of her tenure as the border czar. Anti-American dictatorships have realized relaxing visa requirements are useful cudgels against our sanctions, while human traffickers use Chinese-operated platforms such as TikTok to cajole vagrants across continents to give cash to airlines, boats, and even tour guides by little trod-upon trails.
Meanwhile, emerging powers such as El Salvador have demonstrated that the power of the purse can be used to persuade would-be illegal immigrants from using its infrastructure to go to the U.S. No president, not even Trump, will be able to put Pandora back in the box easily just by reversing Biden’s removal of “Remain in Mexico” and “safe third country” deals, given the now-global origins of immigrants coming for our borders. But the bourgeoning economy fueling the craze provides a blueprint for how to empower our allies to help us staunch the flow, once we decide restoring American sovereignty is a priority once more.
