This op-ed by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) first appeared in Ouachita Citizen on August 28, 2024.
Some of the most violent gangs in the world are looking for new turf, and the Biden-Harris administration’s open border policies have made the United States a destination.
All over the country, law enforcement officers are responding to crimes committed by members of foreign criminal organizations such as El Salvador’s MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gangs. These men are the worst of the worst, and some have already begun to appear in Louisiana.
In New Orleans, for example, border patrol officers arrested a member of the violent MS-13 gang during a traffic stop. If you’re wondering how officers could pick the suspect out of a crowd, it’s likely because he’s covered face-to-toe in disturbing tattoos. Law enforcement had already deported this criminal once, but somehow even a guy with a Halloween mask tattooed on his face could sneak right through President Biden’s open border unchallenged.
Officers in Baton Rouge recently arrested a sex trafficker affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang who had been working on behalf of the gang to traffic women into Louisiana. A victim told law enforcement that the gang coached them to use the White House’s broken immigration system to make sham asylum claims so they could enter the country. Once inside, the gang smuggled some of the women to “stash houses” in Louisiana where these gang members pressured the women to commit sexual acts.
The Biden-Harris administration’s open border policies have allowed these gangs to get rich while they bring nothing but misery to the United States. Yet the White House ignored calls to formally identify Tren de Aragua as a transnational criminal organization for months. This designation could have helped law enforcement better track the gang’s movements.
There’s also plenty of unorganized crime taking place throughout the country because of the Biden-Harris administration’s policies.
In Lafourche Parish, an 18-year-old from Honduras killed two Louisiana teenagers while allegedly driving drunk. The suspect—who didn’t have a driver’s license—had nearly seven times the legal amount of alcohol in his bloodstream when he crossed the center line, according to law enforcement. America is not receiving Honduras’s best and brightest citizens. That’s an empirical fact.
In Calcasieu Parish, a 39-year-old man allegedly raped and impregnated a 13-year-old girl who had been in his care. Police arrested the man—who is now in jail on an immigration detainer—after the girl gave birth at a local hospital. This is disgusting. This is heartbreaking.
These crimes never should have happened. Yet the Biden-Harris administration refuses to accept responsibility.
From day one, President Biden and his border czar Kamala Harris have embraced the radical policies of the loon wing of their party, and they rolled out the welcome mat for more than 10 million unvetted foreign nationals to enter the United States.
They promised to give health care coverage to illegal immigrants during their campaigns. They made illegal immigration easier with nearly 300 executive orders during their first year in office. They ended Title 42. They destroyed the Remain in Mexico policy. They disparaged our border patrol officers. They gave migrants phones, flights, and hotel rooms. I could go on.
Someone writing a how-to guide for illegal immigrant recruitment couldn’t have dreamed up this bad policy playbook.
The Biden-Harris administration knows that fentanyl dealers, cartel thugs, and suspected terrorists are among the millions of other unvetted migrants at the southern border. Yet when Republicans try to pass laws to ensure these foreign nationals don’t vote in the upcoming election, Democratic leaders do all they can to stop the effort.
It’s hard not to conclude that the Biden-Harris administration created this mess intentionally. They opened the border in hopes of getting more votes, and they left Louisianians and Americans to fend for themselves against the most vicious criminals lurking among the masses.
Louisianians have had enough of the Biden-Harris administration’s border betrayal, and they won’t forget it.
