Executive Director's Corner

Dear All:

It’s Saturday morning, November 5th and I will undoubtably be headed to Ronks, Pennsylvania to toss, smash and bash pumpkins at the annual Pumpkin Madness Festival.

It’s also three days before the midterm elections and much like the festivities in Ronks, I expect we’ll see a lot bashing, smashing and tossing. From the perspective of immigration policy alone, there’s a lot to bash and good reason to toss politicians from office.

Elections have consequences and nothing speaks louder to this than the sheer volume of illegal border crossings along the Southern Border since President Biden took office in January 2021. True to his campaign rhetoric he’s not only encouraged illegal crossings, he’s appointed cabinet and agency officials to ensure every possible bureaucratic device is employed to allow illegals to remain.

In fiscal year (FY) 2022, there were almost 2.4 million encounters along the Southern Border, a 37% increase from the 1.7 million recorded in FY 2021. Contrast this to the last two years of the Trump administration in which there were 458,088 and 977,509 encounters for FY 2020 and FY 2019, respectively. Moreover, deportations and arrests of illegal migrants have dropped to their lowest levels since 2008.

In a recent NBC News poll a majority of Americans said they feel the country is headed in the wrong direction. “Immigration and the situation at the border” were top reasons cited just after the “economy/inflation” and “divided nation/political division.” Respondents also indicated they felt the Republican Party would do a better job of “dealing with immigration.”

Likewise, a mid-October Pew Research poll presented similar findings, reporting 57% of respondents felt Republican candidates would be better on immigration versus Democratic candidates (28%) and unsure (15%).

I don’t know of a single race where a candidate’s answer on immigration is ambiguous and while I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone how to vote, for me the choice is clear. It will come down to which candidates at the federal, state and local levels are prepared to bring a semblance of order and control to our Southern Border.

In solidarity,

Kevin Lynn
Executive Director
Institute for Sound Public Policy