As RedState previously reported, the Biden administration’s shocking reversal this week on the building of a wall at the southern border has thrown Democrats in Texas and on Capitol Hill into a tailspin, with some including failed Senate/presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke calling Joe Biden out for breaking his campaign pledge to not construct “another foot of wall” in his administration.
Biden, I should point out, did a miserable job of defending his administration’s flip-flop on the issue when asked about it Thursday, pouting about how he allegedly had no choice in the matter since the money had already been appropriated for it anyway. For good measure, Biden also declared that walls don’t work in his view. His press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, also floundered when questioned about the change during the daily press briefing.
But though Biden and his spokespeople can’t (or won’t) explain the “why” behind their sudden 180 on the wall and Venezuelan deportations, an angrygram sent from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) to Biden on Monday inadvertently shed some light as to what likely factored into to the decision to go forth with the wall two and a half years into his term in office.
In the process, though, the letter from Pritzker also accidentally laid bare an inconvenient truth about Vice President Kamala Harris‘ failures as Biden’s border czar (bolded emphasis added by me):
Unfortunately, the welcome and aid Illinois has been providing to these asylum seekers has not been matched with support by the federal government. Most critically, the federal government’s lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois.
On top of the 15,000 that have arrived in Chicago and Illinois over the last 13 months, we are now seeing busloads more migrants at increasingly higher rates being sent specifically to Chicago each day. Our state government has been forced to dedicate over $330 million to provide humanitarian aid — and that amount is increasing each day. That’s a massive amount of money for a state still overcoming the health and economic effects of COVID-19. Add to that the over $100 million the city of Chicago contributed. Though we have found temporary housing in existing buildings for a majority of the refugees, we are challenged to find additional housing for the continuous flow of people who keep coming and are now forced to sleep in police stations and on sidewalks. This situation is untenable and requires your immediate help beyond the coming work authorizations for some of the asylum seekers.
There is much more that can and must be done on a federal level to address a national humanitarian crisis that is currently being shouldered by state and local governments without support.
First and foremost, I recommend that there be one person in the federal government who works directly for you in the White House who can lead the oversight of our nation’s efforts at the border. Right now, we have too many different federal department contacts — who are uncoordinated with one another — that handle various programs related to this humanitarian crisis. A single office with an identified leader must be assigned to work for the cities and states across the silos of government to manage the challenges we all face.
I guess Pritzker has either forgotten that Kamala Harris is Biden’s designated point person on the border crisis or he’s fed up with her (like many are) because her name is not mentioned even once in the letter (view PDF version here).
Either way, it’s an embarrassing though likely unintentional reminder from Pritzker of how detrimental she’s been in her role in trying to get to the so-called “root causes” of the border crisis.
Further, the letter lends more credence to the theory that the reason the Biden administration suddenly (and seemingly) made border security a priority 13 months ahead of Election Day has nothing to do with wanting to actually secure the border and everything to do with trying to shush the blue state/city Democrat leaders who are now openly criticizing his and Kamala Harris’ handling of the crisis.
