A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. But sometimes pictures leave you speechless.

So it was yesterday with photos leaked to Project Veritas from inside holding facilities at the border.

Dear @AOC. Do you feel the same now as you did when you dramatically knelt down crying by the fences for the camera?

Use these photos obtained by Project Veritas from an insider last week to work toward a solution rather than play the blame game. pic.twitter.com/O3IhpO0t36

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 22, 2021

Contained and wrapped in foil like alien pods in a sci-fi thriller.

Also these photos provided by Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar revealing the conditions for dozens of children and adults in an CBP overflow facility in Donna, Texas. 

These photos reveal the conditions for children and adults in a US Border Patrol overflow facility in Texas https://t.co/teGcaavLUx pic.twitter.com/yxqDTVaCEv

— CNN (@CNN) March 22, 2021

Thank you, Project Veritas and Rep. Cuellar for getting around the Biden Border Blackout. As we reported last week, the Biden Administration doesn’t want you to know what is going on at the border. They’ve banned media from facilities and drive-alongs. Just ask noted Getty Images photo-journalist John Moore. He says he was never denied access under Bush, Obama or Trump. But with Biden, there’s “zero access.” 

Thankfully, some information is getting out. CNN reporter Priscilla Alvarez described the migrant children centers Monday as “jail-like,” looking similar to concrete “prison cells.”

“Those are facilities that are not intended for them, they look like jail-like conditions, like prison cells with concrete walls and concrete benches, and these kids are spending more than the three-day limit than they’re supposed to according to federal law,” Alvarez said on CNN’s New Day.

It is tragic. It is disastrous. Most depressing of all, it was totally, completely avoidable.

What Did Biden Administration Think Would Happen?

By reversing Trump policies at the border, by shutting down construction of the border wall, by cutting ICE off at the knees, by re-instituting catch-and-release, by promising health care during the campaign, by sending the message loud and clear through Mexico and Central America that Orange Man Bad is gone and Kind Uncle Joe wants to “manage” illegal immigration rather than stop it, a crisis was inevitable.

As sure as the Rio Grande flows so would a flood of migrants to the border.

Human and sex traffickers would leap at the gift offered up by the White House. They’re now earning some $14 million a day, sources tell Fox News.

The drug cartels would celebrate Biden’s easing up on the border like it was Carnival.

What else did Biden and his administration think would happen?

The Biden Administration — chock full of Obama Administration veterans, including Biden himself — should have known what would happen. They need only look to the border crisis under Obama-Biden … facilitated by Obama’s immigration policies. As The Washington Post reported at the time, “The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found.”

That’s when the so-called “cages” that Trump was hammered for came into being.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.

What’s happening at the border is insanity.

It’s also a joke. Literally. At least to Kamala Harris. 

“Do you have plans to visit the border?”

VP HARRIS: “Not today” *laughs*
pic.twitter.com/ZpHJFBXwys

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 22, 2021

No Joke to Me

The current crisis is no joke to me. Three years ago, in the spring of 2018, I had a worry. Admittedly, a selfish one. Our Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration was set to be published in May, 2018, but it looked as if President Trump and the Democrats were on the verge of making a comprehensive immigration deal. Trump would get his wall and some restrictive immigration reforms. The Democrats would get citizenship for even more DREAMERS than they asked for and fewer reforms than Republicans wanted.

A nice, big, bipartisan deal. A nice, big ceremony at the White House. Everybody’s happy. And our book is out of date before it even hits book stores. It might as well have been titled The Politically Incorrect Guide to Cassette Decks.

However, the Democrats, not wanting to give Trump a victory on the Wall … or anything else, nixed the grand deal. Good news for the book. Bad news for America.

Still, Trump managed to maneuver, muscle, adapt, sneak, craft his way into reaching many of his immigration goals without the Democrats. The border wall was being built. Mexico was helping out with thousands of troops. Deals were cut with Central American countries to keep their folks at home. ICE was tossing out criminals by the thousands. Catch-and-release was ended. Sanctuary cities were squeezed like zits. The flood at the border was reduced to a trickle.

And then, as Trump wrote Sunday night, in a matter of weeks, Biden has turned an American victory into disaster.

Three years after I worried our book would be out of date, the border crisis is worse than ever. Good news for the book. Very bad news for America.

In the book, John Zmirak and I laid out 15 steps America needed to take to fix its immigration and illegal immigration problems. Those steps are still valid, but let’s make things much more simple: “Just go back to what America was doing just ten weeks ago.” Start with just that. Reverse the Biden executive orders and mixed messaging. No talk of “managing” illegal immigration rather than stopping illegal immigration. No stimulus checks for illegal immigrants. No promises of health care, education and hotel rooms. No catch-and-release.

The real question, though, is one of will. We must face the reality that — knowing the inevitable consequences — the flood of illegal immigrants is something Biden and the Democrats want. Sex abuse, health risks, economic stagnation, drug flow, human trafficking, overrunning of social services and government facilities be darned.

Even yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki insisted what is happening at our border is “not a crisis.” It is a “circumstance.”

It’s not quite Rep. Ilhan Omar calling 9/11 “some people who did some things,” but it’s darn close.

On the front cover we quoted Ronald Reagan, “a nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”

Perhaps the quote needs to be updated. “A nation that will not control its borders is on a suicide mission.”

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream and co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl on Twitter and Parler, if his Twitter account is restored. You can also follow him @StreamingAl on Gab and MeWe.