The Left Uses Migrants as Human Shields

February 1, 2024

By Dale Wilcox

Anti-borders activists are finally paying attention to a human tragedy at the Southern border, but only because they see an opportunity to score political points.

Three migrants — including two children — drowned in the Rio Grande earlier in January while attempting to enter the U.S. illegally, and the reaction encapsulates everything wrong with the politics of immigration.

Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro claimed the tragedy resulted from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s “inhumanity,” and “cruelty,” while a reporter wrote an op-ed for CNN accusing Abbott of taking an “unduly harsh line” on border security, despite the fact that Texas has seen as many as 12,000 illegal aliens regularly cross its border on a daily basis for the past three years. Of course, the narrative crafted by activists and politicians turned out to be false. By the time Border Patrol and Texas officials were alerted of the situation, the migrants were already deceased, but the anti-borders movement is never one to let a crisis go to waste.

The cynical effort to blame those who seek stronger border security for human tragedies at the border has been pervasive for a long time, but that doesn’t make the effort any less infuriating. The illegal immigration lobby has been noticeably silent over the past three years as a record number of migrants have died at the U.S. border as a result of their “compassionate” policies being implemented by the Biden administration. They have been oddly quiet about the billions of dollars cartels are raking in as they rape and traffic young girls. They have had little to say as fentanyl trafficked through our abandoned border continues to kill more than 100,000 mostly young Americans on an annual basis. The bottom line is that the anti-borders movement does not care about human life as long as the end result involves millions of foreign nationals resettling into the U.S.

If there is anyone to blame for the deaths of these migrants and the large number of human tragedies at the border, it is the U.S. government, not the government of Texas. Joe Biden entered office on Jan. 20, 2021 and immediately began intentionally dismantling what had been the most secure border in modern American history. He appointed the ideologue Alejandro Mayorkas to lead the Department of Homeland Security, cancelled construction of the border wall, halted deportations of illegal aliens, and terminated the Remain-in-Mexico program, which had been wildly successful at reducing asylum fraud. All of these programs saved lives, and the decision to end them has cost lives.

Texas has been making a valiant effort to secure its border and save lives in the face of the federal government’s unconscionable dereliction of duty. The Biden administration has responded by going all the way to the Supreme Court in order to tear down the state’s border barriers. Because of the administration’s victory at the high court, demoralized Border Patrol agents will be forced to cut down razor wire Texas has put up to repel illegal aliens from crossing into the state. The obvious message this sends to aspiring migrants is that the border is wide open and the people currently in power are inviting them to come en masse.

The Biden administration has spent the last three years doing everything in its power to make it easier for migrants to cross the border illegally. As a result, more migrants will die while making the perilous journey through Central America to the U.S., more young girls will be raped and trafficked by the cartels, and more Americans will be killed by fentanyl. The mounting human tragedies happening at the southern border is a horrific stain on our nation, but the cause and the culprit are clear.

Texas is trying to save lives, while the Biden administration’s nonsensical policies are destroying them. All available evidence as well as basic common sense makes clear that the best way to protect the lives of Americans and foreign nationals alike is to secure the border. The best way to honor the lives of these deceased migrants is to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. The administration has all the tools at its disposal to prevent these human tragedies. It’s only a matter of will.

The reaction to this latest tragedy demonstrates how the left views migrants as a means to a political objective. The anti-borders movement only cares about the lives of migrants to the extent they can use them as human shields to distract from their immoral agenda.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Also published at American Thinker, February 1, 2024.