Joe Biden has made some terrible decisions before. But this one is beyond the pale.
And Biden just ordered Homeland Security to do the unthinkable.
It’s indisputable that President Biden has made the United States less safe than when he took office.
Under his watch, Russia invaded Ukraine and has threatened Western Europe and the United States with nuclear war.
China continues to threaten Taiwan and extend its geopolitical tentacles across the world. Not to mention their brazen spying over America with spy balloons.
But one of the most egregious policy failures – and the one that hits home for many Americans – has been Biden’s open border policies.
Thanks to him, millions of illegal immigrants have poured across the southern border bringing drugs, disease, and crime.
And now he’s directing the Department of Homeland Security to abandon its post to shift more resources to the disaster at the border.
Officers who process normal applications from legal immigrants, as well as those undertaking anti-terrorism operations or assisting in the reunification of separated families, have been conscripted. They were told to start a seven-day training course this week and to be ready for a 60-day deployment to assist with the migrant surge.
Employees were enraged and unloaded their rage on US Citizenship and Immigration Services officials in a briefing monitored by The Washington Times on Friday.
The meeting was led by John Lafferty, the head of USCIS’s asylum division, who admitted that the agency does not have enough people to handle the border surge and all of its other responsibilities.
“We’re going to have to take a hit on other priorities in order to do this, but the department has made very clear that this is a priority,” Mr. Lafferty said. “The administration, the White House, has made clear this is a priority.”
Mr. Lafferty stated that while he can send 600 to 700 asylum officers to the border, it will take 1,100 to 1,200 to prepare for the department’s anticipated increase.
Hundreds of USCIS staff have been asked to begin training to assist this week.
Recruits say they came from high-priority professions such as anti-terrorism and working on President Biden’s task group to reunite children separated from their families under the previous administration.
Mr. Lafferty stated that USCIS’s other work will be slowed.
“Some other things that we all consider very high profile or priority are going to have to be done perhaps at a slower rate,” he said. “Fewer cases being done, taking a little longer, to meet the ask that has come to us.”
Mr. Lafferty initially solicited volunteers, but far too few responded. Border patrol became mandatory, or, as one employee called it, “voluntold.”
Several employees questioned the agency’s ability to make the change.
“Where is the authority for the agency to conscript us found? I’d like to read it with my own two eyes,” one said in a message posted to the virtual briefing’s chat function.
Unfortunately for Biden, even if he had the authority and the confidence of DHS agents, all of this would be too little too late to stem the flood at the border.
Stay tuned to DC Daily Journal.
