When President Trump declared a national emergency last year related to the obscene numbers of illegal immigrants flooding into the country, he had the right idea in mind. But it looks like he might have failed to pick the right kind of emergency.

Call it a technicality.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that the latest national emergency declaration, the one related to the public health scare over the China-born coronavirus, has been far more effective at keeping illegal immigrants out than the emergency declaration that was meant to do that very thing in February 2018.

From the Washington Post, which reports that new emergency authority has allowed border agents to turn back and clear out close to 10,000 illegal immigrants in U.S. custody all in less three weeks:

The measures have allowed the agency to quickly turn away most unauthorized migrants — sending them back across the U.S.-Mexico border. The moves have dramatically slashed the number of detainees held in border stations, where they fear the coronavirus could spread, the officials said. CBP has fewer than 100 detainees in custody, down from nearly 20,000 at this time last year during the border crisis, officials said.



Since the implementation of the rapid expulsions, migration levels have fallen to near their lowest point in decades, with unlawful border crossings down 56 percent, said acting CBP commissioner Mark Morgan. He also acknowledged that the United States has all but closed its borders to asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution, including those who attempt to enter legally at U.S. ports of entry. Who knew that all we needed to control our jungle of an immigration system was to have a public health crisis?

A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection told me Friday that because the emergency declaration deals with the general public health and not immigration directly, it gives agents the power to turn away nearly everyone who illegally crosses into the U.S., even unaccompanied minors, who have presented the biggest problem over the past five years.

"This has to do with we don’t want [potentially infected] people in our facilities," said Matthew Dyman, a spokesman for the CBP. "We don’t have the capabilities to treat people, to screen them, and we definitely can’t social distance in what are essentially small jail cells."

He stressed that the illegal immigrant removals are "expulsions," rather than deportations, which carry a legal consequence. Unless an apprehended illegal immigrant who is caught at the border is wanted for a crime within the U.S., he or she is simply turned back to Mexico. If he or she is from a different country, like Haiti, they're then handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a flight back.

Thank liberals, Democrats, and the social justice mob for it coming to this. Up until now, every single effort to curtail mass illegal immigration has been pushed back by leftist court decisions and Democrats in Congress who have no interest in upholding immigration law. The Trump administration has seen some glimmers of success when, after months, their cases make it to the Supreme Court. But why should it take that long?

Trump was the first Republican in forever to warn about the infectious diseases coming into the country by way of our open southern border and ridiculous immigration laws.

You don’t even have to take his word for it. Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio affirmed it in 2018. After touring an illegal immigrant detention facility in his city, he said, “They've said that a number of kids have come with lice, have come with bedbugs, have come with chickenpox, physical diseases, and contagious situations that just make it worse for everyone else.”

There are a billion reasons to prevent the obscene numbers of foreigners from invading our country as though living in the U.S. and taking advantage of its generosity were a right for the rest of the world. But it apparently takes a pandemic to actually take some sense of control.

Trump’s instincts, or at least his rhetoric (so much as he believes it), has always been right on immigration. He needs to find a way to keep things the way they are if and when the health emergency is lifted.