DHS Threat Assessment Warns of Post-COVID Border Surge

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) takes aim at illegal immigration in its new “Homeland Threat Assessment.”

Forecasting that illegal traffic across the Southwest border will “climb significantly” after COVID-19 restrictions ease, the agency warns of “the potential for another [migrant]surge as those who were previously prevented from seeking entry into the United States arrive.”

“Unprecedented numbers of family units and unaccompanied alien children arrivals stretch government resources and create a humanitarian and border security crisis that cripples the immigration system,” the report stated.

DHS said current COVID-19 protocols and congressional foot-dragging hamper immigration operations right now.

“Social distancing requirements could continue to affect work taking place in detention facilities along the Southwest border. Budgetary impediments toward immigration enforcement and lack of bipartisan support of detention measures continue to undermine U.S. immigration enforcement policies.

“Such inconsistent practices continue to lead to the release of dangerous criminal aliens and absconders who may then commit additional crimes when they might otherwise have been expeditiously detained and removed from the United States,” the report concluded.

The DHS assessment comes as asylum seekers pile up at the southern border. In addition to Central Americans, thousands of Haitians, Africans, Cubans and Middle Easterners have landed in Mexico — all eyeing America as their ultimate destination.

The Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy (officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols, MPP) has largely kept ineligible asylum claimants at bay, denying them the opportunity to disappear into the American interior after they lose or abandon their claims.

Yet Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has vowed to end MPP while halting deportations of all but the most heinous criminal aliens and granting amnesty to some 11 illegal aliens residing here.

This week, Qatar-owned al Jazeera posted a story, “Asylum seekers in limbo look to U.S. election with hope and fear.”

The same goes for American citizens who are understandably anxious about the real and prospective threats to their homeland’s security.