Border Crisis: How Foreign Leaders Take Advantage Of Biden's Weakness

(U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Juan Torres)

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — One of the ways the border crisis and the nationwide impacts are the fault of President Joe Biden, beyond the day-one executive orders he signed, is how his weak leadership has signaled to adversarial foreign leaders they can be bolder in their demands and stubbornness.

This has manifested itself in two recent ways.

Mexico

Mexico, my family’s motherland. While Mexicans had been historically the demographic most often seen illegally crossing the border, the Biden administration made sure the entire world goes through the Central American country, ravaged by its drug war, to come to our doorstep. Mexico’s cooperation when it comes to illegal immigrants going through their country in order to reach ours is critical. It is also fleeting.

At the end of the day, Mexico views the migrants in their country as America’s problem and a way to make money as they make their way north. What is often forgotten today is how wild President Trump was towards Mexico to make them get their act together. The statements threatening a 5% tariff on all goods entering from Mexico if they didn’t do their part to stop illegal immigrants were wildly panned within the U.S., but Mexico took the threats seriously.

The country set up its own version of the National Guard in 2019 and quickly deployed them to its northern border. That was the last of the migrant caravans under the Trump administration, a stark contrast to the almost monthly caravans that leave southern Mexico today.

With a weak administration that has a man who now has to use the little stairs to enter and exit Air Force One to avoid falling again, Mexico knows it holds all the cards and can do what it wants.

This is exemplified by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). AMLO has taken steps to undo years of cooperation and progress between the U.S. and Mexico in their fight against the paramilitary drug cartels. The Mexican National Guard? It has done little to either directly fight the cartels or stop the flow of illegal immigrants reaching the northern border since Biden entered into office.

New stories gave a plausible explanation of why that is: AMLO’s campaign was supported by major cocaine traffickers when he first ran for president in 2006, to the tune of millions of dollars. He has denied the allegations. But he did not really criticize the different news outlets that published the stories, instead taking his aim at the U.S. government for providing the leaks so it can carry out “election interference.” (Mexico’s presidential election is in June.)

AMLO has become so enraged over the stories he is threatening to end his nation’s cooperation when it comes to illegal immigrants. The lesser-known fact when it comes to deportations and expulsions is that Mexico has to agree to accept people, who are not Mexican citizens, that the U.S. removes. As a sovereign nation, Mexico can, and has in the past, refuse to accept certain nationalities.

The issue of a nation taking people back goes beyond Mexico, which brings us to our next example.

Venezuela

Venezuela. The nation that American socialists don’t want to talk about. Beyond its success at importing Tren de Aragua gang members (i.e. bad hombres) into the U.S. during Biden’s border crisis, the Maduro regime is also threatening to not accept deportation flights in response to the U.S. possibly implementing sanctions because the Maduro regime is trying to keep the opposition presidential candidate off the ballot.

That is significant for all the wrong reasons. Despite expanding protections for Venezuelans to stop them from choosing to illegally enter the U.S., Venezuelans are still illegally entering the U.S. in large numbers. CBS News reported last year that while the number of Venezuelans encountered by Border Patrol dropped by 46 percent late last year, agents still encountered almost 30,000 Venezuelans in October 2023.

The issue is how the progress — if you can call it that — comes after Venezuelans were the top nationality showing up at the southern border for nearly two years. Just by the law of percentages, some don’t qualify to stay in the U.S., for reasons such as being a member of Tren de Aragua. Getting rid of them will be hard enough when it comes to ICE having been neutered by the Biden administration, but it will be even harder if Venezuela stops accepting deportation flights.

Securing the southern border will be a challenge that will take years, but the problems stemming from the millions of illegal immigrants who have arrived since 2021 will take even longer.

The point is that Biden campaigned on having the “adults” back in charge and to improve our standing with the rest of the world. It was laughable on its face because Biden has been more wrong than right when it comes to foreign policy, but at least he was just a senator and vice president during those times. Now, he’s the guy. He’s our guy.

Whether it is the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal or the border crisis, the world knows if they want to take advantage of the U.S., they can do it with little pushback from the people in charge of our country.