Syndicated columnist Debra J. Saunders: Broken border, dysfunctional government
The wages of sanctimony hover over New York Mayor Eric Adams.
With President Joe Biden's policies drawing record numbers of migrants to cross the Texas border illegally, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has arranged for buses to transport some of those migrants to New York City and Washington, D.C., both "sanctuary cities" proud of their willingness to accept immigrants regardless of their legal status.
So you'd think the Big Apple's political class would be thrilled that Texas sent some 800 undocumented migrants to the city on 15 buses over the last two weeks, according to the New York Post.
Wrong. During a press conference last week, Adams threatened to take a busload of New Yorkers to Texas where they could do some "old-fashioned door knocking" ahead of the November gubernatorial election between Abbott and Democrat Beto O'Rourke.
Apparently, Adams feels he cannot blame Biden, a fellow Democrat whose rhetoric and posture have served as a green light to the world's immigration scofflaws. So Hizzoner is scapegoating Abbott.
"Go ahead, mayor, make my day," Abbott countered on Fox News. "New York is a sanctuary city. Mayor Adams said that they welcome in illegal immigrants, but now that they have to deal with the reality of it, they're suddenly flummoxed and cannot handle it."
More than 728 people died crossing the U.S. Mexico border last year, according to data released by the International Organization for Migration Missing Migrants Project. They died in pursuit of the American dream.
Unfortunately, they made the decision to attain their goals by flouting federal immigration law and arriving in waves that enrich criminal cartels, as well as drug and human traffickers.
Border arrests are poised to reach a record 2 million for this fiscal year. The federal government can't or isn't stopping it. So Abbott mobilized the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety to do something.
New York is part of the problem.
In January, Adams let pass a measure to allow some 800,000 noncitizen residents to vote in municipal elections starting next year. Gotham's City Hall can't stop itself from signaling that immigration laws were made to be broken.
Adams' response to Abbott was so misplaced that former New York Gov. David Paterson, a fellow Democrat, marveled that the Texas governor had come up with "one of the most brilliant political strategies I've heard in a long time."
Paterson also offered on WABC 770 that while he doesn't think the move will hurt Adams politically, Abbott's move was a smart play.
"Nationally," Paterson added, "it's an amazing way to focus people on the whole immigration process."
Actually, I think the public is focused on immigration because what voters see is not a "process." It's a mockery and a free-for-all. The federal government's failure to enforce the law is making America a more dangerous country. For decades now, American taxpayers have been funding a massive bureaucracy that seems designed to fail. And Biden doesn't care.
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