By Joe Bast | May 16, 2022
On May 2, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman spoke about his latest trip to the nation’s southern border at an event in Appleton hosted by the Fox Valley Initiative. About 50 people attended.
Grothman said immigration is the biggest issue facing the nation today. He delivered a numbers-packed presentation that made his case. According to the congressman:
* 153,000 illegals were allowed into the country in March (that we know of).
* 63,000 illegals were allowed in in March 2021.
* 11,000 illegals were allowed in in March 2020, the last year of the Trump administration.
And yet, Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of homeland security, says he “inherited a mess” from the Trump administration! In reality, Trump had solved the southern border crisis. Biden reversed Trump’s successful policies and created a crisis.
More March immigration numbers from Grothman:
* 9,000 illegals were unaccompanied minors, a heartless and cruel way to evade the law. Some kids are “rented out” to adult illegals to make it easier to cross the border; some arrive at the border with messages written on their shirts: e.g., “Please send me to 123 North Elm Street, Denver.” They are duly flown or bused to the addresses.
* 60,000 illegals were “got-aways,” people known by Border Patrol to have escaped their efforts to stop or capture them.
* The rest (153,000 – 9,000 – 60,000 = 84,000) turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents who then spent all their time doing the paperwork necessary to release them into our country.
* 70% of Border Patrol agents start the day doing paperwork. By the end of the day, 90% are doing paperwork. So most agents, most of the time, are NOT patrolling the border.
* Deportations are down to one-quarter of what they were during the Trump administration.
* If Title 42 is repealed, Border Patrol estimates the number of single adults coming from Mexico and Central America will rise by 15,000 a month.
According to Grothman, who has visited the border several times, many of the illegal immigrants are “arrogant” and boastful at the border, knowing U.S. immigration officials cannot stop them from entering the country. They hold celebrations at the border and complain about having to wait in line to get their paperwork. Some were even heard to say, “hurry up, I’ve got tickets to a concert tonight.”
According to Border Patrol, Mexican cartels make more money from human trafficking than smuggling drugs into the U.S. (Grothman said he doubts this is true.) Illegals are not usually impoverished. They are middle class and even upper class, have lived in other countries for months on their way to the U.S. border.
One of the first things Tony Evers did after becoming governor was to withdraw the Wisconsin National Guard from a Trump program whereby state National Guards flew aircraft over the southern border to help with surveillance.
Republican leadership, according to Grothman, is asking the party’s members to “focus on inflation,” since polling and focus groups show that’s a winning issue for the GOP. He doesn’t think the party can win by ignoring immigration and all the other issues and challenges caused by Biden’s and the Democrats disastrous policies.
Action items: The Fox Valley Initiative meets on the first Monday of the month at the Freedom Project Academy, 750 N. Hickory Farm Lane in Appleton. Visit their website at https://foxvalleyinitiative.com or contact them by email at [email protected]. See more events in the Wisconsin Patriots Toolbox Calendar.