The End of Open Borders
By Sen. John Thune
It’s been clear for a while now that an enduring legacy of the Biden-Harris administration will be the historic immigration crisis at our southern border. The last four years have been the four highest years of illegal immigration ever recorded. This record-breaking illegal immigration crisis didn’t just happen on its own, the Biden-Harris administration created it. For those of us who have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of an open border for years, it comes as no surprise that the American people are ready to turn the page on this administration’s failed policies.
On the day he took office, the president began dismantling President Trump’s border security policies, and illegal immigration soon began surging in response. Between official U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounters and known gotaways, there have been somewhere around 10 million migrant encounters at our southern border on President Biden’s watch. To put that number in perspective, that’s larger than the population of the vast majority of U.S. states – and that’s just the individuals we know about. There are undoubtedly individuals who have made their way into our country over the past four years who have been neither seen nor apprehended.
It’s essential to remember that the situation at the border doesn’t just affect border states. South Dakota is about as far from our southern border as you can get, but law enforcement officials consistently tell me that deadly drugs in our state can be traced back to the southern border. Then there are the bad actors who are able to enter the country because of the chaos at the border. Individuals with terrorist ties and gang members have been caught after crossing the border illegally. And we’ve seen tragic cases of Americans killed by illegal immigrants who should never have been in this country in the first place.
Next year, under the Trump administration and with Republican majorities in Congress, the American people can expect that border security will be a top priority. That starts with restoring the border security policies of the first Trump administration, letting Border Patrol do its job, and beginning to deport those who are in the country illegally.
If recent reports are accurate, immigration officials are preparing for a possible final surge before President Trump takes office – a clear sign, if one were needed, that migrants regard President Biden as the open-border president. Final surge or no final surge, the days of this border crisis are numbered. For the sake of our security and the rule of law, President Trump and the Republican Congress will take decisive action to fix the mess created by the Biden-Harris administration.
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Amen, Bryon.
The people of this great State of South Dakota have been richly blessed to know the Noem family and I have been especially blessed to know many of you personally.
I am thankful for all of you.
I expect absolutely nothing to get done on the border, because it’s too effective a boogeyman to give up. Ag sector is dependent on migrant labor, as is our tourism industry, so looking forward to having to clean up Trump’s unfettered bed soiling for the next four years.
TDS…seek help.
Senator Thune’s claim of “open borders” under the Biden administration is inaccurate. Biden has a failure of career politician his whole life but the U.S. does not have an open-border policy, and the Biden administration has continued enforcement, including Title 42, which allowed the rapid expulsion of migrants for much of his term. The “10 million encounters” he cites include many repeat attempts and do not reflect the number of unique individuals entering the country illegally.
Migration surges are driven by global factors like poverty, violence, and climate change in Central and South America, but U.S. foreign policy has also played a significant role. Decades of intervention, including support for destabilizing regimes, military coups, and economic policies like NAFTA, have contributed to the poverty and instability that drive people to leave their home countries. Blaming Biden alone ignores these broader systemic causes.
Thune links drugs like fentanyl in South Dakota to the border, but this is misleading. Most fentanyl is smuggled through legal ports of entry in vehicles, concealed in cargo or driven by individuals, often U.S. citizens. Migrants crossing on foot rarely transport fentanyl. According to CBP data, over 90% of fentanyl seizures occur at these checkpoints, not in remote areas.
Thune also highlights criminals and terrorists crossing the border, but these cases are rare. Individuals on terrorist watchlists are almost never apprehended at the border, and undocumented immigrants are statistically less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.
John’s call to restore Trump-era policies overlooks their failures. Actions like family separations and border wall construction were expensive, inhumane, and ineffective in addressing the root causes of migration. Real solutions require reforming immigration laws and addressing poverty, instability, and the consequences of U.S. foreign policy in migrants’ home countries, not relying on punitive measures that do little to solve the problem.
Real solutions require removing those who are now in the country illegally & preventing any more from entering illegally.
That’s not a “real solution”; it’s a lazy, thoughtless slogan. Removing millions of people already here isn’t just logistically impossible it would cost billions, destroy industries like agriculture and construction that rely on immigrant labor, and rip apart families, many of whom have lived here for years. Pretending you can “just deport everyone” shows zero understanding of the problem’s complexity or the global issues, like U.S. interventions and economic policies, that caused much of the migration in the first place. Real solutions require intelligence and effort, not simplistic fantasies that sound tough but solve nothing.
Most will leave voluntarily when current laws are enforced and jabs & benefits are no longer available.
Anon at 10:36 is correct. They wouldn’t be here if employers didn’t hire them and employ them.This is something we do to keep various sectors of the economy growing. We will not deport agricultural workers. We don’t now and we won’t in the future. Half the dairy cows in Wisconsin (and South Dakota?) are milked by an undocumented worker. Getting your house roofed almost always involves a crew of undocumented Latin Americans. Packing Plants, day workers, dry wall and many other manual labor jobs are filled by the undocumented. Now, tourism has become dependent on undocumented workers. At best, we will deport undocumented workers who have committed violent crimes while in the United States.
Throwing CEOs and business owners that hire illegals in prison would also stem the flow of illegal immigration. But politicians are bought and sold by them so that won’t happen.
If Mexicans were white, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
If Mexicans would respect the laws of the USA this wouldn’t be an issue.