If a\nhomeowner told you that ever since he or she installed a security system,\nattempts to break into or burglarize their home have gone down \u2013 thereby\nshowing that the security system is no longer necessary \u2013 you would probably\nscratch your head in disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet the left-wing website Vox <\/em>wants you to buy into similarly flawed \u201clogic\u201d in a June 25 article<\/a>.Entitled \u201cThe US military will stay on the US-Mexico border, even with migration falling,\u201d the piece questions the wisdom of retaining up to 4,000 troops at the southwestern border. This assertion comes in the wake of Secretary of the Department of Defense (DOD) Mark Esper\u2019s recent approval of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) request for DOD assistance to help secure the border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The approval\nextends the current mission \u2013 which was set to expire at the end of September \u2013\nthrough the next fiscal year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same\ntime, Vox <\/em>notes that the newly\nauthorized number of troops would, in fact, constitute a decrease from the\n5,500 military personnel currently at the border. And most of the presence\ncomes from the National Guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless,\nthe leftist outlet claims that even this somewhat reduced presence \u2013 \u201cand other\nmeasures to secure the border\u201d \u2013 are not really necessary. The reason,\naccording to Vox<\/em>, is that \u201cmigration\noverall has declined amid the pandemic.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n While there is little doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to reduced illegal migration, that is not the entire story. Surely President Trump\u2019s multi-pronged efforts<\/a> to secure the border and stem illegal migration \u2013 such as border wall construction and\/or replacement, cracking down on asylum abuse, agreements with Mexico and Central American nations, and the deployment of U.S. military personnel \u2013 also had an effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The proof? Even before the pandemic led to the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to all nonessential travel and the immediate return of illegal border crossers to countries through which they entered (rather than detaining them), the apprehension numbers were going down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For instance, from a peak of 144,000 southwest border apprehensions and inadmissibles in May 2019, the figures steadily and significantly declined<\/a> during the remainder of 2019 and the early months of 2020, i.e. before the coronavirus struck. For example, in January and February, theapprehensions were at the 36,000 mark, and March saw 34,000 apprehensions\/inadmissibles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Vox <\/em>points out that \u201cU.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) arrested about 23,000 migrants in May, a decrease from 114,000 in the same month in 2019,\u201d it is technically correct. What the authors are missing is that 23,000 is still an increase from 17,000 apprehensions\/inadmissables in April 2020. CBP has not yet released the June numbers. Given the relative uptick from April to May, there is little reason for complacency or a return to pre-Trump \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d at the southwestern border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n