How Obama Created an Immigration & Humanitarian Crisis

The recent surge of unaccompanied illegal alien minors crossing the South Texas border has been portrayed as a humanitarian crisis by the Obama administration. While these young crossers face perilous conditions in transit and uncertain futures once they arrive, the fact is that the crisis has been the direct consequence of lax enforcement and a welcoming environment for illegal aliens manufactured by the Obama administration.

The surge is straining Border Patrol resources to the breaking point. What’s worse, the administration’s response to the crisis — transporting illegal border crossers to other locations where they are processed and then released — is exacerbating the situation.

The surge, and the collapse of immigration enforcement nationwide, has been brought about by the Obama Administration’s six-year scaling back of enforcement – changes that have incentivized millions thinking of coming to America illegally:

• Immigration laws are now only enforced against violent criminals.
• Administrative amnesties granting quasi-legal status and work authorization to entire classes of illegal aliens have, and continue to occur.
• The Secretary of Homeland Security is reviewing deportation practices with an eye toward identifying additional categories of illegal aliens who will be exempted from immigration enforcement.
• The U.S. has limited the detention and removal of illegal unaccompanied minors crossing the border and women attempting to enter with children.
• Illegal aliens are being released on their own recognizance or minimal bond with the tacit assurance that as long as they do not commit a serious crime, no one will come looking for them.
• Obama has issued an ultimatum to Congress that they either enact amnesty legislation by the end of the summer, or he will implement one without congressional authority.

As a consequence, illegal aliens, anxious to capitalize on the administration’s offer of a free pass into the U.S. place their lives and their children’s lives in the hands of ruthless smugglers. As we head into the summer months, more than 60,000 illegal aliens, including young children, are expected to make their way across a harsh and unforgiving desert to reach the U.S. border. Some, unfortunately, die along the way. It is not inevitable but sadly the politics of the Obama administration trump common-sense immigration enforcement that would prevent these tragedies.