Washington Post Sees a Border Crisis in Europe (but Not U.S.), and Applauds EU Leaders for Trying to Combat It

The editorial board of the Washington Post has declared a border crisis – and it is one that “must be stopped”! No, not the one along the U.S. southern border, where migrants are crossing illegally at a clip of more than 200,000 a month (and those are just the ones we can count). It is the surge of migrants crossing into the EU, aided and abetted by the government of Belarus.

The Post editorial correctly notes that the crisis, playing out largely along the Polish border, is “choreographed and [is a]cynical attempt to provoke a crisis.” In this case the choreographer is Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus and a close ally of Russian strongman, Vladimir Putin.

Despite months of sustained high levels of illegal migration along our own borders that began when President Biden took office, the Post remains adamant that it is not a crisis. While the Post is disturbed by the “choreographed” nature of the assault on the EU’s borders by those whose motives are inimical to the interests of the countries facing influxes of migrants, they seem unperturbed by similarly choreographed caravans heading to the U.S. border.

The Post laments that organized human smuggling rings are being encouraged by policies that grant migrants “Belarusian visas and flown on Belarus’s state-owned airline to Minsk” and then “bused to the Belarusian border, along with their children and belongings, and in many cases pushed to cross it by Belarusian security forces.” Sound familiar? Not to the Post apparently?

The editorial even goes so far as to applaud EU leaders for taking a tough stance against organized incursions of its border. “Fortunately, the European Union shows no sign of rewarding this cruel ploy,” states the paper. Preventing mass incursions of migrants across the U.S., on the other hand, is often depicted as the manifestation of cruelty. Efforts to clamp down on mass migration across our border is labeled as “fearmongering” in another editorial.

In response to a Supreme Court ruling ordering that the Biden administration reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols, the Post editorialized that requiring them to remain in Mexico, in “dangerous tent cities,” pending a hearing on their claims runs contrary to “basic American ideals and values.” By contrast, the migrants “huddled in the freezing forests without food, is a sign of reckless depravity” on the part of those organizing the assault on the EU’s borders.

So, apparently, for elitist media outlets like the Washington Post, the concept of “American exceptionalism” has taken on a whole new meaning. To them it means that every nation on earth has a right to secure its borders and resist organized efforts to undermine their sovereignty, except the United States of America.

Ira Mehlman: Ira joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1986 with experience as a journalist, professor of journalism, special assistant to Gov. Richard Lamm (Colorado), and press secretary of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. His columns have appeared in National Review, LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and more. He is an experienced TV and radio commentator.