The PointBy Daniel Greenfield

Attorney General Sessions delivered a strong speech about open borders and immigration law that calls out the hypocrisy of open borders. Here are a few excerpts.

This is a decisive issue. As the President often says, “a country without borders is not a country.” I don’t know why that is so hard for some people to understand. In the United States, we have the most generous immigration laws in the world. We take 1.1 million people on a path to citizenship every year. Another 700,000 come here to take jobs. Another half a million come here to take spots in our colleges and universities. These are generous laws. And yet, when we enforce them, we get attacked in the media by the so-called elites and their special interests.

Americans are reproved for not being open enough. Here’s how open we are.

The vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee recently wore a t-shirt that says “I don’t believe in borders.” I wonder what his neighbors think about that… The Attorney General of this state, Xavier Becerra says that “there’s really no difference between my parents and [illegal] immigrants except a piece of paper.” Paperwork, meaning compliance with our law, is important. And it’s a shame that I must say this to the top law enforcement official in California.

Does Becerra have that same attitude to all the other required paperwork in California? Is the only difference between him and an unlicensed driver a piece of paper?

We hear views on television today that are on the lunatic fringe. And what is perhaps more galling is the hypocrisy. These same people live in gated communities and are featured at events where you have to have an ID even to hear them speak. And if you try to scale their fence, believe me, they’ll be only too happy to have you arrested and separated from your family.

That of course is exactly true. And there’ll be no televised weeping about it either. No protests, no crocodile tears and no outrage.

They want borders in their lives but not yours and not the American people’s. This is why the American people are sick of the lip service and the hypocrisy. They are sick of the politicians who abandon their promises as soon as the mainstream media criticizes them. They’ve seen it for decades. And now they are supporting a President who is on their side.

Or, more specifically, they want power. The power to set borders or remove them to their own advantage.

And here, AG Sessions zeroes in on the “family separation” scam and the Flores settlement at the heart of it.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice filed a request—right here in the Central District of California to modify the terms of the Flores consent decree, which is what keeps us from detaining alien children with their parents for more than 20 days while their asylum cases are pending. We are asking the court to let ICE detain illegal alien children together with their parent or legal guardian in family residential facilities. This consent decree—and case law right here in California that has expanded it—has had disastrous consequences for illegal alien children. In 2015, the Department of Justice under President Obama also tried to modify the consent decree for this exact reason. But it was blocked. And so the word got out that if you crossed our border illegally you would not be detained as long as you brought a child with you. The results won’t surprise you. The number of people illegally crossing our border with children went up dramatically. In 2013, there were 15,000. This year we’re on pace for 88,000—a five-fold increase in five years. And we know how well ‘catch and release’ worked. Last year there were 40,000 removal orders issued for people that didn’t show up for their hearings. And it’s no wonder: our broken immigration laws are telling people that they can come here illegally. So why wait in line? If we don’t fix our laws, then the flow of illegal immigration is not going to stop—and with it, the gangs, the drug cartels, and the human trafficking, including of children.

That is what the left wants. The same people who claim to care about migrant children want to see them trafficked by drug cartels.

By definition, we ought to have zero illegal immigration in this country. But we have more than 1 million illegal aliens just in the Los Angeles area. It is widely estimated that there are more illegal aliens in California than there are people in New Mexico.

Remember Hillary’s “popular vote” win? And take a look at the battles over the census and congressional districts. Follow the power and it’s easy to see why the left is fighting for open borders.