Border authorities have been saying it for weeks, but they said it again yesterday: The illegal-alien surge is a crisis — a national emergency.

What Customs and Border Protection chief Kevin McAleenan has described in the last few weeks is no mere upsurge in border-jumping illegals. The relentless tsunami of humanity overwhelming U.S. border agents is such that describing the migration as simply akin to the apocalyptic novel Camp of the Saints no longer suffices.

Jean Raspail’s terrifying portents in his apocalyptic novel have come true at the U.S. border with Mexico. A massive number of “migrants” and “refugees” have decided they’re going to live in the United States.

And nothing, it appears, is going to stop them.

El Paso News Conference

On Wednesday, McAleenan repeated what he said on March 5 at a news conference that depicted a terrifying reality: The border, for all intents and purposes, is gone.

McAleenan, the El Paso Times reported, said immigration control reached its “breaking point has arrived this week.”

The influx of “migrants” in March, he said, will be more than 100,000, the newspaper reported:

“CBP is facing an unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis all along our Southwest Border — and nowhere has that crisis manifested more acutely than here in El Paso,” McAleenan said.

In the past two mornings, border officers took more than 12,000 migrants into custody along the border, McAleenan said.

“A high number is 4,000 — 6,000 is crisis level,” McAleenan said. “Twelve thousand is unprecedented. On Monday, we saw the highest total of apprehensions and encounters in years, with over 4,000 in a single day.”

He continued, “We are now on pace for over 100,000 apprehensions and encounters with migrants, with 90 percent — 90,000 — crossing the border illegally between ports of entry. March will be the highest month in over a decade....”

“The surge numbers are just overwhelming the entire system,” McAleenan said.

Beyond that, 10 to 15 percent of the teeming horde is claiming asylum, and almost all of those claims will be phony. Most of the marching mass is here for “economic reasons.” They’re looking for jobs and welfare in the United States.

Even worse, the newspaper reported, McAleenan told reporters that 65 percent of the crossings are families and “children,” the rest simply individual illegal-alien adults trying to sneak into the country. Some, of course, are hardened criminals.

The newspaper also noted CPB data for the El Paso sector alone: Some 36,000 families have jumped the border this fiscal year, a 1,689-percent increase over last year’s 2,000. Apprehensions of unaccompanied minors increased 296 percent, from 1,300 to just more than 5,000.

On March 6, the newspaper reported, 1,000 illegal aliens walked across the border and “turned themselves in.”

Most Americans don’t know what happens next: They gorge on free food, and some get a free trip to the doctor or hospital. After that, border agents release them to disappear into the country. Removing them becomes all but impossible once they burrow into ready sanctuaries.

Then they displace American workers, apply for welfare benefits, and fill the public schools.

Upshot? Anyone who shows up at the border can count on being released.

Why They Are Released

Border and immigration authorities don’t have the means to house them, and the illegals know it. Arriving with kids, they know, is a pass for permanent squatter’s rights.

In other words, President Trump has not, as promised, stopped catch and release.

On Tuesday, Breitbart.com reported that the Department of Homeland Security has loosed 108,500 illegals upon unsuspecting Americans in the last three months. DHS released 24,000 between March 5 and March 20 alone.

Americans in the following areas should be wary:

• San Diego, California — 2,500 border-crossers released

• Phoenix, Arizona — 4,000 border-crossers released

• El Paso, Texas — 7,500 border-crossers released

• San Antonio, Texas — 10,000 border-crossers released

Of the 108,500, Breitbart reported, “50,000 of these border crossers and illegal aliens, alone, were released in the San Antonio area since the beginning of the year.”

Another mind-boggling number? “DHS is releasing more than 36,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the country every single month. For the year, DHS is on pace to release more than 430,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the country.”

Through February of this fiscal year, CPB data show, agents have collared 318,407 illegals, including 158,118 as families and 28,976 children. Last year’s total was 187,097. Agents apprehended 76,013 in February alone.

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