Humanitarian Crisis on the Border: How We Got Here

Beyond the Biden administration’s string of unforced errors that have helped create and exacerbate the crisis on the U.S. southern border are organizations and people using the migrants as pawns to achieve their political objectives.

CRC researchers have tracked some of the money and influencers (organizations and people) who have helped create this humanitarian disaster. Below is a review of relevant CRC publications:

“Reform Immigration for America: The Left’s Echo Chamber for Immigration Reform” by Hayden Ludwig, June 19, 2020.

The demand for immigration reform may have been one key to Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, but a decade ago the Left was leading the charge to overhaul America’s immigration system.

The now-defunct lobby Reform Immigration for America (RIFA) was central to that campaign. It was a coalition of some 800 left-wing groups that emerged after Barack Obama’s victory in 2008. RIFA hoped to build an echo chamber around the new Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to pass a broad immigration package, including citizenship for the roughly 12 million illegal aliens nationwide.

Arguably, it failed because it was competing with Health Care for America Now, another echo-chamber coalition ginned up by the professional Left.

“George Soros: The Face Behind the Caravans?” by Jon Rodeback, February 26, 2020.

Three U.S.-based organizations—Pueblo Sin Fronteras, La Familia Latina Unida, and the Centro Sin Fronteras—appear to have played key roles in organizing and otherwise assisting the “caravans” of immigrants. Following the money trail appears to lead back to George Soros’s well-funded Open Society Foundations, which are trying to advance his Open Society ideas throughout the world. Much is unknown and uncertain about their involvement, but it deserves thorough investigation.

“Government-Funded Nonprofits Being Paid Millions to House Unaccompanied Minors” by Robert Stilson, March 15, 2019.

The Unaccompanied Alien Children Program (UAC Program) exists to fulfill HHS’s statutory obligation to care for minors without legal immigration status and who are unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. Typically, they are transferred to HHS custody after being detained by the Department of Homeland Security. It’s an interesting program to examine for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it can’t really be “cut” in the traditional terms one might apply to the federal budget. Children—whatever their immigration or citizenship status —need to be accounted for, cared for, and reunited with their families if possible, for obvious reasons.

“The Open Border Activists Behind the Illegal Immigrant Caravans” by Hayden Ludwig, October 24, 2018.

You may have heard about the caravan of immigrants from Central America making its way through Mexico in the hopes of illegally crossing the border into the United States. The group of perhaps 4,000 to 7,000 people has made its intentions clear: entering the U.S., even if it means violating American immigration laws.

But you may not have heard of one of the key organizers behind the caravan: Pueblo Sin Fronteras, or “People Without Borders.” And Pueblo Sin Fronteras wants to keep it that way.

“Resettling Refugees: An International Agenda” by James Simpson, September 14, 2018.

A vast network of foundations, non-profits, government entities, and political organizations have a vested interest in the continued growth of the resettlement of refugees in America. Because they receive billions of dollars in federal grant money, publicly financed, tax-exempt organizations have significant incentives to support political candidates and parties that will keep these programs alive. These organizations need to be thoroughly audited and the current network of public/private immigrant advocacy and resettlement organizations needs to be completely overhauled. Resettling refugees should be a voluntary, genuinely charitable activity, removing all the perverse incentives government funding creates.

“Dark Money Ascendant: Influencing the Immigration Debate” by Matthew Vadum, May 8, 2018.

Armed with a large endowment from left-wing duty-free shopping tycoon Charles “Chuck” Feeney, the soon-to-dissolve Bermuda-based Atlantic Philanthropies invented a new way of using tax-privileged dollars to promote radical social change in America. Atlantic takes credit for the enactment of Obamacare and even for driving immigration-enforcement hawk Lou Dobbs off CNN. Arguably, Atlantic Philanthropies changed the immigration debate in the United States.

“Of Border Walls and Dreamers: Drawing Lines on Policy” Michael Watson, April 3, 2018.

Donald Trump burst onto the scene as a Presidential candidate gripping one of the “third rails” of American politics: immigration. Using harsh rhetoric against existing immigration policy, which he accused of being soft and unsound, Trump seized the Republican nomination and won the Presidency. Meanwhile, his opponent, Hillary Clinton, tiptoed around the question of whether the United States and other developed countries should have any effective immigration regulations whatsoever.

Few areas of public policy are as viscerally divisive as immigration. As an issue it implicates national culture and sovereignty, national security and crime, economic progress and opportunity. Combined with multi-million and multi-billion-dollar interests pushing for incompatible changes, the result is a policy mess that satisfies no one, not moderates, restrictionists, or liberalizers.