LARRY KUDLOW: The border problem is a business problem

The massive wave of illegal immigrant crime is also a business and economic problem. That’s the subject of ‘The Riff’.

New figures from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) show a staggering number of convicted criminals – convicted of murder, assault, burglary, kidnapping, sexual assault – walking free in the country. It’s an incredible story.

And right at the top, it must be said that sanctuary cities and states play such a huge role in preventing these criminals from being deported.

CRIME IN MAJOR CITIES BY 2023 HAS SOME COMPANIES BLESSING THAT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

And then it must be said that the combination of open borders and sanctuary cities has been so damaging to public safety across the country, and so costly in terms of government spending and benefits.

And the combination of crime, costs and broken budgets has been hugely damaging to the economies of these sanctuary cities, and a real killer for small businesses.

Almost every day there is another story about big box stores and small supermarkets going out of business because illegal immigrants are stealing from them, or involved in murders inside them, or shootings in the stores, or stabbings, or violent attacks on officers. The number of illegal immigrants and their crime wave has risen enormously, while public order has fallen sharply. And they are places that are going bankrupt – early estimates of hundreds of billions of dollars lost in social services, free food, free health care and free housing.

In many cases it involves driving people from their homes, driving children from their schools and classrooms, making streets almost impassable because of the explosion of homelessness – which has so much to do with the criminal wave of illegal immigrants.

In other words, this is a collapse of sovereignty at the border. It is a collapse of public security in the country’s interior. And it’s a financial collapse. Or, to put it even more bluntly, the economics of illegal immigration are becoming as bad as the crime rate.

TEN THOUSANDS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH SEXUAL ASSAULT, MURDER CONVICTS ROAM THE STREETS OF THE US: ICE DATA

Make no mistake: this border problem is a business problem.

And Kamala Harris wants to raise taxes on corporations, both big and small, to punish them even more severely — as if her ouster as border czar and her attacks on ICE (remember “reimagining ICE”?) weren’t enough.

She said a few days ago in Pittsburgh that the American dream is no longer achievable. One reason is that closing the border and ending the crime wave in sanctuary cities is unfeasible, at least under her policies.

Some of these ICE numbers are hard to believe.

425,000 convicted criminals, 62,000 convicted of assault, 56,000 with drug convictions, 13,000 convicted of murder, 16,000 sexual assault convictions.

The number of illegal aliens not detained but facing deportation has risen from 3.7 million in fiscal year 2021 to nearly 4.8 million in 2022, to more than 7 million in 2023, according to ICE. And that doesn’t include at least a few . million escapes, or those coming in on secret flights, or through the CBP One phone app.

One of the amazing things about these terrible numbers is that the government has had them for a while, but never released them — until ICE sent a letter to House of Representatives member Tony Gonzales. And then the word came out.

In other words, Biden-Harris was involved in a major cover-up of illegal immigration, right?

So today, Border Czar Kamala returns to the Arizona border for the first time in three years, on a trip that might remind voters just how dire the border crisis is, especially with these new ICE numbers released today.

She and President Joe could have ended this disaster four years ago, but they didn’t.

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Now they blame Trump for opposing the Senate border bill, which would not have passed in the first place and would have allowed just under 2 million illegals per year, a maximum of 5,000 per week.

No bargain there. So that argument is nonsense.

What about Mr. Trump’s ideas: capture and deport, stay in Mexico, complete construction of the wall, end all sanctuary cities, shut down all entry through the migrant phone app, and even liberate places like Aurora, Colorado – those are taken over by Venezuelan criminal gangs.

Seems like a pretty good plan to me. And that is ‘The Riff’.

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the September 27, 2024 edition of “Kudlow.”