The open-border catastrophe of the last few years was no accident — it was policy. Since Fiscal Year 2021 the federal government recorded more than 11 million inadmissible encounters at our borders, and that tidal wave of illegal crossings wrecked communities, strained schools and hospitals, and invited criminals and cartels to treat America like a dumpster. Hardworking Americans saw their towns transformed overnight because federal leaders refused to do the one job voters expect: secure our borders and enforce the law.
We should also be honest about the results when enforcement finally returns. The Department of Homeland Security reports that more vigorous border control measures drove encounters down to historic lows in 2025 — proof that decisive action, not another endless debate over amnesty, actually works. Conservatives have been saying for years that the problem is not a lack of laws but a lack of will; these numbers show the will matters.
At the same time, Americans deserve the facts about how screening already works: refugee and asylum applicants undergo multi-agency biometric and biographical checks, FBI name and fingerprint searches, Department of Defense and DHS biometric matches, and terrorism database screening before they are admitted. That’s real security work — detailed, expensive, and thorough — and it proves the point that what we need is enforcement of these processes, not virtue-signaling shortcuts. If the system is too slow or too weak, fix the bureaucracy; don’t surrender our homeland.
But the system has loopholes and perverse incentives that the political class refuses to close. Programs like mass parole and app-based scheduling have been exploited to move people into the interior while claims languish, and the result has been thousands of otherwise inadmissible entries and even individuals on terror watchlists intercepted between ports of entry. This isn’t a left vs. right talking point; it’s a warning that if we fail to patch these gaps, we invite real danger.
Here’s the conservative answer: we do not need a flood of new laws written by career politicians who caused the problem. We need to enforce the ones on the books and insist on a handful of commonsense, America-first principles — rigorous ideological and biometric vetting, mandatory assimilation requirements like English and civics for legal newcomers, merit-based admissions that favor skills and self-sufficiency, and swift deportation of criminals. When these principles are non-negotiable, the people who come here will be the ones who want to be Americans, not those who want to undermine us.
We must also reassert the idea that citizenship implies a shared loyalty to the Constitution and to the rule of law, not a patchwork of special exemptions. Local communities should be empowered to insist newcomers respect our culture and laws, and the federal government must stop outsourcing border control to NGOs and foreign governments. If you want to bend the arc of history toward freedom, you start by teaching newcomers that freedom comes with responsibility, not entitlement.
Finally, put political theater aside and give our law enforcement the tools and the backing they need — end catch-and-release, restore meaningful asylum gates abroad, fund biometric databases, and fully prosecute smugglers and corrupt officials. The left’s answer is open borders and moral preening; ours is order, sovereignty, and gratitude for those who come here legally and assimilate. That’s not harshness — it’s patriotism.
Americans who love this country should demand nothing less than both secure borders and a humane, selective immigration system that upholds our values. We can be generous and safe at the same time, but only if we stop pretending indecision is compassion and start living by the principles that made this nation great.
