The recent scenes of thousands of migrants storming the northern Spanish border should serve as a warning to the U.S. of what can happen with a combination of open borders and amnesty. That admonition comes from former Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who told Newsmax that "if we're not careful, this could happen to us again." By "again," Lyons was referring to scenes of migrant caravans trying to storm the border in South Texas a few years ago during the Biden border crisis. "You take a small town like Del Rio, like Harlingen (in Texas)...and you can have the same situation here," Lyons said.
The Spanish surge came notably right after their government offered a new amnesty program to illegal migrants. At the same time, politicians in the U.S., including many Republicans, continue to tout amnesty for certain illegals here. "When people know and understand that if they can just get here, they are very unlikely to be removed, then people will take their chance," says Lora Ries, director of border security and immigration at the Heritage Foundation. "That's why it's not just about border security."
"This happens every time, if you talk about amnesty and promise amnesty, people will come," she continues. "And more will come and apply than you originally offered the benefit to, the fraud is inevitable, and you'll get more applicants and grantees than originally intended."
While the U.S. southern border has become less of an issue under the Trump administration in the last two years, this situation in Spain is a wake-up call to not let our guard down. In fact, Ries tells KTRH the last thing the U.S. should be doing is offering more amnesty when we haven't come close to cleaning up the mess left by the Biden border crisis. "We have at least 20 million deportable aliens inside the U.S. right now," she says. "We need to get back to mass deportations, and not be on defense trying to oppose amnesty."
"President Trump ran on mass deportations, people elected him for mass deportations, and we still need it as a country."
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