In just two short months, President Biden has undone all the success President Donald J. Trump made toward securing our southern border.
As a result, we now have a mounting crisis that is spiraling out of control at an undeniable pace. The very people then-candidate Biden encouraged to come to the country are now the ones suffering the misery of his administration’s ineptitude.
It also brings danger to the doorstep of the United States yet again.
However, the direct support to loosen border security is, and always has been, the national security apparatus inside the beltway—which I like to call "National Security, Inc."
In 2016, presidential candidate Trump won broad support—and the deep hatred of National Security Inc.—by hammering the message of genuine national security and the importance of protecting our borders and rebuilding our own nation.
Counterintuitively, over the past 40 years, National Security, Inc. has failed to protect our citizens at home from criminals and drugs pouring through our southern border, which has caused an explosion of crime in our inner cities and worsened our failing infrastructure all around the country.
Trump attempted to keep many of them out of his policy-making orbit during his Administration.
However, the tendrils of National Security, Inc. run deep within our government institutions and through the halls of Congress, across both political parties.
With President Joe Biden's election, they have fully regained control of Washington—and the results are bleak.
Sadly, we are now witnessing Obama-era policies on steroids.
Military veterans and American families struggling through a pandemic are sleeping in alleyways, yet Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now spending 86 million dollars to secure hotel rooms for illegal migrants on the American people's dime.
American citizens in border towns suffer most, as illegal immigrants flood the job market at a fraction of the cost of domestic labor. The economic carnage extends deep into America's inner cities, where we should have used the trillions spent in the Middle East toward our own infrastructure and border security.
Moreover, those who live directly along the border wake up each day fearing for their lives. Caravans of thousands of migrants now cross unquestioned into our nation, because we lack proper vetting measures to keep gang members and criminals out.
Just last week, Axios reported that the Customs and Border Protection apprehended four foreign nationals on the FBI terrorist watchlist at our southern border.
But the crisis on our southern border does not stop at violence.
Each day, debilitating amounts of fentanyl and other deadly drugs are smuggled through the now-porous and increasingly insecure border with Mexico. According to the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, 130 people die from an opioid related overdose — every single day.
John Quincy Adams famously said, "America...goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence to all."
For more than thirty years, National Security, Inc. has been doing just the opposite by compromising our well-being as a nation to wage endless wars abroad with unclear objectives and no paths to victory.
As they create war zones abroad, they ignore the one they allowed to explode at our southern border.
How is it we live in a nation so rich and powerful with crumbling roads and highways?
The American Society of Civil Engineers scores the United States a "C-" on infrastructure, with infrastructure spending at an all-time low. Under the guise of national security, the United States government has spent 6.4 trillion dollars on military endeavors since 2001.
It would take 2 trillion dollars to close the 10-year investment gap to restore our competitive advantage with the rest of the world.
We have real adversaries like China that we must deter.
However, China is outpacing us in its mission to rebuild their nation and seize control over the infrastructure in countries worldwide-- including our southern neighbors.
Our focus must be on rebuilding and securing our own country and supporting democracy and prosperity abroad by setting a good example at home.
National Security Inc. wants you to believe that all our problems are thousands of miles away in distant nations, and the trillions of tax dollars we spend over there, not here, are justified.
Imagine if we spent that money had rebuilding our nation's infrastructure, securing our border and ports of entry, and combating crime in America's cities.
Americans would be in a much better place with our genuine safety and diligent concern of a government in Washington that claims to represent us.
Catharine O'Neill served at the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development from the first day to the last day of President Donald J. Trump's administration. The issues that she focused on included religious freedom, immigration, UN reform, and protecting life. Read Catharine O'Neill's Reports - More Here.
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