EDITORIAL: Biden’s disastrous border policies endanger the country

This dangerous situation in the Middle East should jar the Biden White House into appreciating the need to strengthen border security. Unfortunately, the president continues to play games.

Over the weekend, The Associated Press reported that President Joe Biden was hoping to persuade Republicans to support more aid for Ukraine by tying the issue to the U.S.-Mexico border. After nearly three years of tolerating a porous southern border, Mr. Biden now proposes spending $14 billion to beef up security there as part of a $106 billion package that includes more money for Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression.

Logrolling — the practice of exchanging political favors — has a long history in Congress, of course. But this is no time to be cavalier about border policy. Mr. Biden needs to set aside these border funds regardless of what happens to Ukraine funding.

More than 3.8 million people have illegally crossed our southern border since the president took office in January 2021, according to the New York Post, and nearly half of them “slipped into the country illegally and were never caught.” Some reports put the number as high as 5 million. Yet the White House has treated this issue as if it’s a fiction created by right-wing xenophobes. In fact, concern about the administration’s indifference to the influx of migrants on our border with Mexico is widespread.

In a recent Fox News poll, 71 percent of those surveyed disapproved of the president’s handling of border security, with even a majority of Democrats and Biden voters decrying the status quo. “The issue has become a political headache for the Biden administration,” Politico reports, “which has faced criticism from Democratic state and local officials over the federal government’s seeming inaction in the face of the crisis.”

Addressing this problem becomes even more imperative given the brazen terror attacks on Israel.

A memo obtained this week by the Daily Caller reveals that the Customs and Border Protection Intelligence Division is warning “that individuals inspired by, or reacting to, the current Israel-Hamas conflict may try to travel to or from the areas of hostility in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border.” This is an open acknowledgment that, absent more aggressive efforts to control illegal entries, the country faces potential risk. Have any terrorists already slipped through thanks to Mr. Biden’s indifferent approach?

It’s past time the Biden administration acknowledged its failures at the border and got serious about imposing policies that discourage illegal crossings. Unfortunately, the president’s effort to link additional border security funding to Ukraine aid — in the wake of the gruesome terror attacks in Israel — indicates he continues to fail the American people on this important issue.