3/14/2019
- Betsy McCaughey Townhall.com
President Donald Trump launched another battle for
border-wall funding on Monday, calling for $8.6 billion additional dollars in
his proposed federal budget for next year. Top Democrats came out swinging,
bashing a border wall as "expensive and ineffective."
The truth is, Dems are not leveling with the public about
the billions we're already forced to spend on shelters, food, diapers, medical
care and child care for migrants sneaking across the border and claiming
asylum.
Not to mention the costs of public schooling and healthcare
provided free to migrants once they are released into communities. The wall
will pay for itself in less than two years. It's a bargain.
Look what it costs us when a Central American teen crosses
the border illegally without an adult. Uncle Sam spends a staggering $775 per
day for each child housed at a shelter near Florida's Homestead Air Reserve
Base. There they have access to medical care, school and recreation. They stay,
on average, 67 days at the Homestead shelter before being released to a
sponsor. Do the math. That's almost $52,000 per child. American parents would
appreciate the government spending that money on their kids. Imagine the
government handing you a check for $52,000 for your teenager.
However, there are bigger costs ahead. The number of illegal
border crossers just hit an 11-year high with a total of more than 76,000
during the month of February alone. U.S. and Mexican officials predict hundreds
of thousands more in the coming months.
The migrants use the word "asylum" as their
get-in-free card. When they say it to a border agent, they gain entry to the
U.S. 80 percent of the time according to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen
Nielsen. They are temporarily housed and eventually released with an
immigration court date. But half never go on to file an asylum claim,
disappearing into the U.S., said former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
They're turning asylum into a scam. The system is meant to
protect victims of persecution, such as Cubans fleeing Castro's prisons. Now
it's overwhelmed by Central Americans escaping poverty for a lifestyle upgrade.
Legal immigrants also want to better their circumstances,
but they play by the rules. What a slap in the face to see migrants jump the
line.
Unfortunately, a federal appeals court just made the asylum
hoax even easier. Last week, the left-leaning 9th Circuit ruled that migrants
who fail to convince border authorities they face danger in their home country
still have a "right" to a day in court in the U.S. That bizarre
ruling won't stand. Another circuit court ruled the opposite way in 2016,
clarifying that a border agent's decision is final and entering the U.S. is a
privilege, not a right. The Supreme Court let that earlier decision stand, so
count on the Supremes to reverse the 9th Circuit.
In the meantime, though, taxpayers are getting fleeced by
caravans of fake asylum-seekers.
Even before the latest surge, the Department of Homeland
Security spent over $3 billion in 2018 sheltering and feeding illegals at the
border, which is nearly double the cost from 2011.
Add to that the hundreds of millions being spent caring for
unaccompanied teenagers in 130 shelters overseen by the Department of Health
and Human Services.
President Trump has tried several strategies to protect
taxpayers from these rip-offs. First, he barred illegal migrants from asking
for asylum, requiring that asylum-seekers enter the country through official
ports of entry. That would have reduced the numbers considerably. But in
November, a federal district judge, also from the 9th Circuit, nixed the
president's regulation.
Then, Trump devised a "Remain in Mexico"
arrangement to make Mexico the waiting room for asylum-seekers. As long as
they're south of the border, the U.S. doesn't have to house them, and they have
no "right" to public schooling and emergency medical care on our tab.
The program, if successful, will save U.S. taxpayers a bundle. It's one way
Mexico is already helping to pay for the wall.
Dems claim it's a waste to spend billions on a wall. But the
facts show we can't afford not to build it. As the cover of the president's new
budget says, "Taxpayers First."
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