The Price of Open Borders
Weekly Watch
On July 31, The New York Times reported, “As many as 60,000 people were estimated to have surged from Morocco into Ceuta, the small exclave at the center of a crisis for Spain’s pro-immigration government.” A New York Post headline read, “Thousands of illegal African migrants overrun Spanish enclave, turn streets into open toilets and bathe in fountains: ‘An apocalypse.’”
A series of recent Spanish government decisions effectively rolled out the welcome mat to illegal immigration. The border swarm should not have been a surprise. Ceuta normally has a population of around 80,000 people. In short order, 60,000 Moroccans, 99% Muslim, mostly military-age males, crashed their way through the barriers and into the town. They carried no luggage or supplies, just hope for prosperity in Spain. They came with nothing, expecting everything.
Spain’s government finally sent troops, then happily announced that half the invaders had gone home. But when a town of 80,000 is invaded by 60,000, half can go home and you still have a mess. You still have chaos. You still have frightened residents locked inside their homes — praying that help arrives soon.
Ceuta raises a question Americans need to consider. Many in our country now oppose the agency known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They march with signs saying, “Abolish ICE!” and “Defund ICE!” But it’s not just people in the street. In February, an Economist/YouGov Poll “found that 50% of Americans supported abolishing ICE, while 39% opposed eliminating the agency.”
With those kinds of numbers, politicians have gotten in on the act including Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to abolish ICE because, he says, it “terrorizes our cities… puts us all in danger.” These voices have been joined by at least five current members of Congress, a host of congressional candidates (some of whom are expected to win elections this fall), and several other government officials.
New York’s 13th Congressional District is considered a safe Democratic district. So, by winning that primary election, extreme leftist Darializa Avila Chevalier (also known as DAK) is not only considered a safe bet to win that seat in the U.S. House of Representatives this fall, but to stay there for as long as she wants. She converted to Islam in 2018, hates Israel, and says the U.S. is just as bad. “These are not only like systems,” she says of Israel and the U.S., “they are the same system.” Ms. Chevalier says she is not a communist, but she has called for the nationalization of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and “landlords’ property,” and recommends that everyone read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital.
On immigration, her position is even more sweeping. “Yes,” she said, “literally abolish the border.” Can you imagine the reign of terror she’s calling for when she says, “abolish the border”? The people of Ceuta don’t have to use much imagination. They lived the nightmare.
If ICE disappeared tomorrow, the United States could either replace it with another agency or stop enforcing immigration laws. Replacing ICE might buy time for illegal immigrants while the government forms a new agency or adapts an old agency for a new job. Beyond that, it does nothing. The other option — stop enforcing immigration laws, effectively opening the border — invites chaos and destruction.
Reform ICE wherever reform is needed. But abandoning immigration enforcement is not reform. It is surrender. It is giving up national sovereignty, and that is madness. Last week, Ceuta, Spain proved it.
