The immigration crisis on our southern border is one of the most pressing problems the Joe Biden administration will face.

The consequences of his decision making - or lack thereof - are monumental for the country. There are immigration projections of 30 million to 60 million more people arriving in the U.S. over the next 30 years. That’s equivalent to 30 of our largest cities.

Not only will the Biden policy affect population growth, but it will impact housing, traffic, labor (as cheap foreign workers flood in), and the environment as there are more demands put on water, food and land.

Human smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border is now an industry that brings in hundreds of millions of dollars annually for drug cartels, smugglers and corrupt Mexican officials. The cartels charge a per-person “tax” for every man, woman and child who crosses the Rio Grande in an area under their jurisdiction.

With an executive order on Biden’s first day in office, he re-implemented the Obama-era “catch and release” method of dealing with undocumented migrants caught along the South Texas border. Former Acting Customs Border Patrol Commissioner Mark Morgan was not impressed by Biden’s early actions, including his order to halt wall construction and raising the possibility of an “open-border strategy.”

Morgan pointed out that in 2006 when Biden was a U.S. senator, he supported the Secure Fence Act, which partially funded the construction of 650 miles of fencing along the Mexican border through his first term as vice president. It was then hailed then as something very effective to safeguard our nation’s border but Democratic politicians changed course after Trump’s arrival.

Conservatives can see the political hypocrisy and many feel Biden is putting politics in front of public safety.

The U.S.-Mexico barrier to stop illegal immigrants was one of former President Trump’s signature policies, and led to the building of 450 miles of new wall since 2017. Based on migrant report from Mexico and Guatemala, Trump can be credited with ending the mass illegal migration crisis of 2018-19.

By threatening tariffs on Mexican automobiles, Trump was able to convince the Mexican government under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to do its part to stop the flow of migrants, mostly from Central America who traveled through Mexican territory.

López Obredor agreed to boost immigration enforcement and allow more migrants to await their U.S. immigration proceedings in Mexico. He also agreed to send a newly created National Guard to its borders and to dismantle human smuggling networks and establish checkpoints.

Trump’s decisive action brought a decline in immigration numbers but Biden reversed the policy. Democrats, supported by a biased liberal media, wanted the policy reversed to deny Trump any credit of achievement and obliterate his legacy.

Democrats and left-leaning media also promoted a narrative that the Obama-Biden administration was more sympathetic in effectively dealing with the immigrants flowing into the country. They ignore the fact that in 2014, when the U.S. faced an influx of migrants entering the U.S. illegally, the Obama administration began using warehouses to hold migrants and chain-link fencing - aka cages - to separate different groups.

Instead, liberals argued that Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy - meaning that any adult caught crossing the border unlawfully would be prosecuted for illegal entry - lacked empathy and compassion. During the presidential debate, Biden accused Trump of a “criminal” family separation policy that had “lost track” of more than 500 migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Chase Jennings, however, notes that in the vast majority of cases the parents’ objective is to get their children - many of toddler age - into the U.S. by any means necessary, even if it means being separated. They don’t want them returned to their home countries where violence and poverty are rampant.

Parents pay huge amounts of money to smugglers - called coyotes - to get their children or “unaccompanied minors” smuggled into the U.S. Some arrive with adults posing as parents; others are unaccompanied and traveling with a larger group of migrants.

Border officials, meanwhile, face the difficult task of trying to determine which adults were actually parents, which were relatives claiming to be a parent, and which were unrelated adults posing as parents of children they didn’t even know.

It’s now up to Biden to make the hard decisions on immigration - complicated by the human smuggling and trafficking issues - before the crisis escalates into a full-blown human catastrophe on the southern border.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com