None of what is happening at the border is normal.
It’s important to remember that as we continue to be gaslit by the Biden administration and its media supporters about what is going on.
I wrote in these pages in June 2021 about the border crisis and a Washington Post news analysis that found President Biden’s policies were not responsible for the border crush and, anyway, it was a “seasonal” problem.
No word how many more years this particular season will last.
Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) tweeted Thursday, “Immigration has always been an issue, no matter which party is in charge.”
This is flatly false.
Our system has never been this broken.
In fiscal year 2017, Border Patrol saw total encounters of 310,531.
In FY 2023, it was 2,063,692.
Our border has never been this exposed.
Immigrants of the past did not just cross our border and hope for the best. They did not go to sanctuary cities and collect free hotel rooms, clothing, cellphones, transit coupons and so on.
There was a process, and immigrants, including refugees, followed it.
I know because I was one.
Ladispoli, Italy, 1978. My mother and I had finally gotten permission to leave the Soviet Union. We were following my father, who was let out a year before us.
My grandmother and her sister were let go a year before that. They had all come through Italy, an official stopover for the refugees, and spent their Italian months in Ladispoli, a small seaside town not far from Rome.
Ladispoli had the benefit of being rather inexpensive.The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was waiting in Italy to receive us.
It provided a stipend, about $700 a month, for housing and food.
We were all Jews leaving the Soviet Union over religious persecution. We were not allowed to practice our religion, yet we were also not allowed to shed it and be Russian or Ukrainian or Belarusian.
Our passports noted we were Jewish. We could not get certain jobs or study in certain schools.
And that was in the good times.
In the bad times, far worse awaited us.We were refugees, escaping something, not just looking for an economic break.
And still we could not simply hop a flight to JFK airport and expect to be received.
Our time in Italy was part of the process. And we could not simply decide to stay in Italy. We were allowed to be their guests, but there was an end date.
Israel had promised to absorb the Jews leaving the Soviet Union, but some people wanted to go elsewhere.
They wrote to family members, some of whom they’d never met, in places like America, Australia, Canada and so on.
They said, “Please sponsor me.” The sponsorship came in the form of an invitation and a promise to take care of all the refugee’s needs.
Sometimes synagogues would arrange a sponsorship for someone who did not have family in the country they wanted to go to.
Refugees needed someone to vouch for them and say they would not be a drag on the social net in the place they were going.
We did not get free hotel rooms.
We did not get free anything.
It was not an easy process, but the idea of skipping it and expecting any country to just take us in would have been ludicrous.
No exceptions would be made for us; why would there have been?
But then this was in the days before every single Democrat on the 2020 debate stage raised their hand to say their administration would provide health insurance for illegal immigrants.
This was before Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had crying photoshoots at random fences near the border.
This was before special privileges were given to people crossing our border illegally.
Rubin Report host Dave Rubin posted a photo Thursday from Miami International Airport.
It featured a sign with instructions specifically for migrants getting on a flight there.
Don’t want to take a picture?
You don’t have to.
Don’t have any ID?
No problem!
How is this safe?
And why do the rest of us have to follow the rules?
We are a country of immigrants, but the process used to be one in which the Americans already here took priority in every way.
That the current waves are ignoring all rules and being rewarded for it is galling to those of us whose family did what they were supposed to and came to this country by the established rules.
The current process isn’t even a process.
And it’s unsustainable.
Twitter: @Karol