It's the return of catch-and-release, and it's responsible for a nearly threefold surge of illegal crossers of the U.S.'s southern border in the past few months, according to Judicial Watch .

As if commercial airline flights weren't miserable enough, now we have Homeland Security officials escorting unscreened groups of illegals onto commercial airline flights, riding alongside paying passengers. In another example of special treatment, the illegals board with all their luggage on a priority boarding basis, ahead of paying passengers.

Judicial Watch writes:

The illegal aliens wear red HHS wrist bands and receive "the gold glove treatment," according to a veteran federal official, who added that the undocumented immigrants [sic] get priority boarding ahead of all other passengers, including law enforcement personnel. "It is shameful and dangerous," said a seasoned Homeland Security agent with direct knowledge of the secret operations. Labor personnel from front-line Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies have complained about the cost and security risk of flying illegal alien minors to any destination of their choosing within the U.S., according to a longtime Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official present at the meetings.

Score another one for illegal immigrants being better treated by the law compared to ordinary Americans.

With this going on, what is the purpose of airline screening at all? If someone with any background whatever (and a high number of criminals) can ride commercial without screening, why are millions of law-abiding Americans with no criminal background or terrorist ties forced to be screened? Americans were asked to give up a lot in the wake of 9/11 due to the presence of terrorists. The fact that illegals aren't doing the same just underlines the uselessness of the rules.

There are also the health concerns. Illegals by definition are unscreened for infectious and contagious diseases. Forcing them and their unscreened luggage, which may have traveled through deserts, truck cargo holds, and other flea- and vermin-infested places, represents a health hazard all by itself. But what's really outrageous is that the American passengers – the elderly man in vulnerable health, the woman with small children – have no right to say "no" to sitting next to or near such passengers. Already it's known that in 2014, the Homeland Security agents attempted to dump illegal immigrants with known communicable diseases into the small city of Murietta, and the locals protested. (They got dumped in San Diego instead, now the site of a severe hepatitis outbreak.)

Thirdly, there's the business angle, which is that passengers who purchase their tickets last and arrive latest, usually get the highest prices and the worst seats. Compare and contrast to illegals who pay nothing (despite having thousands to pay the human-smugglers who got them to the border) for these flights, get priority boarding, and make the air travel that much more miserable for ordinary paying Americans.

It's not just bad for Americans; it's bad for the illegals, too. Imagine being reared in a tiny village in a small Central American country, paying a human-smuggler to the continent-wide country to el norte and, upon arriving in this vast foreign expanse, suddenly being transported on wings, thousands of miles above, to the city of your choice, watching it magically appear in the scope of a few hours. Wouldn't that make you think of the U.S. government as your all-powerful protector? And wouldn't that make you seek more services from that same benevolent patrón? It's not a good way to get these people started on their road to being Americans, if that is the aim.

It's baffling. Why aren't these people placed on contracted buses at a minimum? Why are commercial passengers, paying hundreds or thousands for their flights, being asked to pay? Is there a reason President Trump or his surrogates can't explain this to us? Yes, we know they are probably doing this out of a fear of lawsuits on overcrowding from left-wing activist groups, but dumping the problems onto airline passengers and giving the law-breakers causing the problem the gold-star treatment isn't the answer.