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Last week, the media exploded with hysteria after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flew 50 illegal migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Liberals spilled gallons of ink over the decision, calling it a “sadistic…scheme.”
As the left lost its collective mind, reports surfaced that the Venezuelan narco-regime is releasing violent criminals, including “some convicted of murder, rape, and extortion,” to cross America’s open southern border. The regime’s intention is all but explicitly to sow death and destruction in the United States. The potential involvement of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, Venezuela’s version of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), raises even more concerns.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen anti-American authoritarian Nicolás Maduro use his own population as a weapon. He did the same thing against former Colombian President Ivan Duque. Nor is Maduro the first to employ such a twisted tactic. During the Mariel boatlift, Fidel Castro emptied Cuba’s jails to overwhelm and undermine American communities.
Today, however, the threat is more serious. Because of the Biden Administration’s disastrous policies, thousands of illegal migrants routinely cross the Darien jungle and slip across the southern border—U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) sources report more than 900,000 “gotaways” since October 2020. It wouldn’t take much for Venezuelan criminals to follow the same pathway.
Even if they are apprehended, there is no guarantee CBP will identify them. The minimal vetting that happens before the Biden Administration releases captured migrants inside the U.S. requires accurate records. Even if these criminals use their real names, Maduro isn’t going to volunteer his state prison records anytime soon. In the words of the government source behind the reports, “Unless we apprehend someone who voluntarily tells us they have committed a violent crime in Venezuela,…they will more than likely be released.”
Maduro isn’t the only one exploiting the border crisis at our expense. After last year’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, terrorists released by the Taliban may be making their way to the U.S. through Mexico. And both Castro’s successor in Cuba and the tyrannical Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua are actively encouraging mass migration to America.
In fact, more Cubans have fled their homeland for the U.S. this year than during the entire Mariel boatlift. It’s something I warned would happen after anti-regime protests swept the island on July 11, 2021. Getting rid of troublemakers––be they real criminals or just those who disagree with the government––helps authoritarian regimes maintain their illegitimate grip on power. It also means fewer mouths to feed and more chaos in America.
If Democrats and their allies in the legacy media really cared about fighting authoritarianism, they’d spend more time covering this threat than they do crusading against Republicans. And if President Biden were really interested in protecting American citizens from violent crime, he’d be working to secure our border from murderers, human traffickers, and drug dealers—including members of deadly gangs like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Colombia’s Primera Linea, which may be seeking to establish toeholds in the U.S. He’d also stop releasing millions of poorly vetted migrants into America.
Instead, the left is happy to ignore the real issues, giving President Biden a pass for sending more than 70 planes filled with illegal migrants to Florida and downplaying Vice President Kamala Harris’s brazen lie that “the border is secure.”
Reality paints a different picture. Reality reveals a wide-open border and a massive network of human traffickers profiting from the abuse of vulnerable migrants. It reveals drug cartels fueling the worst overdose crisis in U.S. history. And now, it reveals violent criminals intentionally released by a dictatorial regime to infiltrate and destabilize America.
Together with fellow members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I’m calling for a formal assessment of mass migration trends in the Western Hemisphere. I’m also calling on the Biden Administration to stop its negligent policies and reckless rhetoric, which are encouraging crime and chaos throughout the region. It’s scandalous, unjust, and dangerous—and it needs to end. Our politicians and media both must give the border the attention it deserves.
Marco Rubio serves as a Republican senator from Florida / Marco Rubio es senador republicano por Florida