Former President Donald Trump, who has already formally launched his 2024 re-election campaign, just gave a big hint about what would immediately be a top priority to address in a prospective second term.
During a campaign event in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump stated emphatically that “illegal border crossers” would swiftly be apprehended and “sent straight back home” under his leadership, the Conservative Brief reported.
That would be a complete policy reversal from the current administration under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, where the southern border is all but completely opened and millions of migrants who crossed illegally over the past two years have been allowed to remain in the country
“Illegal border crossers are going to be sent straight back home”
In remarks reminiscent of his first speech in 2015 to announce his candidacy, former President Trump rattled off a list of the various sorts of criminal elements exploiting the chaotic and porous border to illegally gain entry into the United States.
“They’re coming from prisons and they’re coming from mental institutions, and they’re coming from a lot of bad places that is gonna cause us a lot of problems,” Trump said. “We have to get that straightened out and we have to get it straightened out fast. We have to remove a lot of people very, very fast.”
“Because we can’t have what they are sending,” he continued. “They’re sending people that are killers, murderers. They’re sending rapists and they’re sending, frankly, terrorists or terrorists are coming on their own, and we can’t allow this to happen.”
“So the illegal border crossers are going to be sent straight back home,” Trump added. “Those bad ones, especially, and they’re gonna go fast.”
BREAKING: “We have to remove a lot of people very, very fast…They’re sending people that are killers, murders. They’re sending rapists”pic.twitter.com/DpPiFKBd8f
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 28, 2023
Millions of migrants have illegally entered under Biden
Former President Trump is not incorrect to highlight the obvious dangers posed by current President Biden’s decidedly lax enforcement of border security and immigration laws, as evidenced by the federal government’s own numbers with regard to illegal border crossings, The Political Insider reported.
In just the first month or two since Fiscal Year 2023 began in October, nearly 300,000 known “gotaways” — the term for illegal border crossers spotted but not apprehended by agents — have entered the country, according to sources with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
That puts FY2023 on pace to see more than 1.2 million such “gotaways,” which is more than the nearly 400,000 known “gotaways” in FY2021 and roughly 600,000 in FY2022 combined. And, again, that figure only encompasses those who were spotted but not apprehended and doesn’t include the unknowable number of those who may have entered illegally without being detected at all.
Throw in the approximate million-plus annual border encounters and apprehensions of migrants, the overwhelming majority of whom are simply processed and released into the interior — including some with known criminal records or pending criminal charges — and it is an unmistakable and continuously worsening problem.
Trump’s achievements squandered by Biden
Former President Trump made securing the southern border and substantially reducing illegal immigration and drug trafficking a top priority of his term in office, only for his hard work and achievements over four years to be wasted and reversed by President Biden in half that time.
Whether it is Trump again himself or some other Republican who, hopefully, ascends to the presidency in 2024, there is no denying that securing the border and dealing with rampant illegal immigration and drug trafficking will once again have to be among the first issues addressed by the next elected leader of the United States.
