The Biden administration insists that the White House did not unfurl a 2,000 mile-long welcome mat along the southern border, last week.  Nevertheless, on countless messaging apps around the world, aspiring migrants have spread the word that Uncle Sam is waiting with open and forgiving arms.  Last Thursday, at the stroke of midnight, Title 42 came to end.  A relic of the COVID-era, Title 42 was an emergency public health provision that allowed border agents to instantly deport illegal and potentially infectious trespassers.  Now, with the end of the COVID emergency, the border emergency is intensifying.

Already at historic levels, illegal crossings surged, last week, to an all time high of 10,300 arrests in one day.  Among a throng of migrants rolling through a check point near San Diego, California, federal authorities scooped up an Afghan national currently on the FBI’s terrorist watch list.

Former Obama defense secretary Leon Panetta tells the Washington Post, “At this stage of the game, I think the administration has had enough notice that they have got to be ready.”  Fellow Democrat, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is even more withering,  Over the weekend, Cuomo grumbled to a local New York radio show, “There was no plan as to what to do with the people who you let in.”  He called the White House strategy “a real debacle,” adding, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”