The Shadow
Fourteen months after the terrorist attack brought down the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, George W. Bush signed the “Home Land Security Act” on Nov. 25, 2002.
By 2018, the Department of Homeland Security had grown to include 240,000 employees. Currently, Commander Alejandro Mayorkas is in charge and facing a Herculean task.
The border between Canada and the U.S. that his department is charged with defending is the longest border between two nations on Earth.
The border stretches 8,890 kilometers between eight Canadian provinces and territories and 13 U.S. states from Alaska to the north and Wash. in the lower 48 continental states on the West Coast to Maine on the East Coast. Converting kilometers to miles, the total is 5,525.854.
Mayorkas faces fewer problems to the North than in the South. The border between Mexico and the U.S. is the 10th longest border between two nations in the world. It stretches from the Gulf of Mexico, along the Rio Grande River, to the border crossing at Cindad Juarez, Chinhuahua and El Paso, Texas.
From there it continues westward across the Chihuanuna and Sonoran deserts to the Colorado River Delta and on to San Diego and Tijuana cities before reaching the Pacific Ocean.
Add the 1,954 miles to the 5,525 miles along the Canadian border, and the total miles is 7,379 miles of border to protect.
That is only part of Mayorkas’ Herculean task because Alaska alone has more miles of shoreline to defend than the other 49 states combined.
Alaska has 47,300 miles of shoreline, and added to the shoreline that must be defended on the East Coast to the shoreline of the southern states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and the West Coast shoreline not to mention Hawaii (750 miles of shoreline), then the total miles becomes astronomical, 95,439 miles of coastline to defend.
With the U.S. Border Patrol defending the homeland from north to south and the U.S. Coast Guard defending the shorelines along the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, West Coast and Hawaii, Mayorkas has seen a spike in the number of asylum seekers crossing the U.S. Southern Border, ones from more than 130 nations in access of 2,000,000 since he was appointed to his position.
On March 16, 2021, one year into the coronavirus pandemic, Mayorkas stated on the website for U.S. Homeland Security, “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.”
He added that most single adults and families are being expelled, but that unaccompanied children are not being expelled.
The website message noted that the border was being secured and that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Public Health safeguards were being implemented to protect migrants and the public.
With 1.6 million apprehensions in 2021, Mayorkas’ prediction about increased numbers came true. In Jan. or 2021, 78,414 immigrants were apprehended compared to 154,816 in Jan. of 2022.
Feb. of 2022 saw an increase from 101,099 in 2021 to 165,902, and March saw an increase from 173,277 in 2021 to 222,339 in 2022.
April of 2021 stats revealed that 179,795 were apprehended compared to 235,478 in 2022, and in May of 2021, 180,597 were apprehended compared to 239,416 in 2022.
With over the 1.6 million apprehensions in 2021 from more than 100 nations, the increase in 2022 is apparent from an examination of the numbers posted on the website of the U.S. Homeland Security.
The crux of the problem is that the processing of asylum seekers occupies the time of so many U.S. Border Patrol agents that thousands of unidentified people are crossing the U.S. Southern Border (got-aways) that is being utilized by the Mexican cartels to smuggle contraband and engage in human trafficking.
With 300 ports of entry to guard along with thousands of miles of shoreline and border territory, Mayorkas’ Herculean task is never-ending, and 42 suspected terrorists have been apprehended among the record number of people crossing the border illegally.
One 24-year-old Honduran immigrant lied about his age to the U.S. Border Patrol, claiming to be a teenager. After he was transported to Fla. and released to a family who took him in, believing him to be a teen, he was arrested and charged with the stabbing death of the father of four who had provided him with a home.
