On Tuesday morning, we published a piece demonstrating how Democrats' go-to border crisis talking point throughout the 2024 campaign was a false, cynical dodge. They said new legislation was needed to reverse the historic invasion of their own making, while many of us made the obvious counterpoint that all the Biden administration really had to do was simply un-cancel many successful Trump-era policies and start enforcing the law aggressively. Democrats pretended that because a fatally-flawed Senate bill was defeated, with Trump in opposition, their hands were tied. Trump, they claimed, didn't really want to solve the problem. Then he won, and immediately solved the problem -- without new legislation. Border encounters fell 96 percent last month, compared to the previous February, a virtual erasure of the crisis.
Trump highlighted this point very succinctly in Tuesday's Join Session Address, thrilling Republicans, as stone-faced Democrats sat in seething silence, as they did all night:
President Trump: "The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have have legislation to secure the border. But it turned that all we really needed was a new president." pic.twitter.com/BO5mGN13ml
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 5, 2025
The border piece of the puzzle is not permanently solved, and more security measures must be implemented for sustainability in the longer term. Congress certainly has a role there. But much of the illegal immigration-related challenge now flows from the popular and necessary push to deport legions of illegal immigrants who are already here, millions of whom are new arrivals, including far too many criminals. The leaders of lawless and pro-illegal immigration 'sanctuary' jurisdictions were grilled on Capitol Hill yesterday. Their admissions and delusions were telling:
Congressman @ByronDonalds asks each sanctuary mayor how much their cities spent on illegal aliens during the border crisis?
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 5, 2025
Mayor Adams - $6.9 billion
Mayor Johnston - $79 million
Mayor Johnson - 1% of city budget (won't disclose the number)
Mayor Wu - "We don't ask about…
Boston's Mayor, last heard from lavishing condolences upon a knife-wielding maniac who was shot by an off-duty cop, boasted "we don't ask about immigration status, that's how we keep our city safe." Tell that to the many victims of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants in Beantown, where criminal aliens are actively shielded from accountability. Denver's Mayor, who once suggested local police would be ordered to actively combat federal immigration enforcement, plead ignorance on disgraceful scenes in his city:
NEW: These are the release documents for the Tren de Aragua gang member that was released to a Denver jail parking lot due to sanctuary policy, leading to an ICE agent being assaulted. Notice it is stamped “release to street” by the Denver Sheriffs Dept, & they even gave the TdA… pic.twitter.com/hZ9GbJONUs
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 5, 2025
NEW: The city of Denver has released video showing ICE chasing down & arresting a suspected Tren de Aragua gang member who had just been released from jail after Denver refused to hand him over to ICE inside the safety of facility due to sanctuary policy. Instead, he was street… pic.twitter.com/SbeaeNrjAJ
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 5, 2025
“This is the first time I’ve been made aware of that there’s been an incident like this," the mayor claimed. Why have sensible and uneventful handovers of criminal illegal immigrants to ICE within the secure confines of jails when these criminals can be released into the streets, forcing federal officers to chase them down in public? Sanctuary policies are dangerous and insane. I'll leave you with this:
"Very cowardly," said Jocelyn Nungaray's mother slamming Democrats who refused to rise during President Trump's tribute to her daughter, who was murdered by a criminal illegal.
— NRCC (@NRCC) March 5, 2025
Out-of-touch Democrats do not care about illegal immigrant crime. pic.twitter.com/uyexMf2kWr