LARRY KUDLOW: The border problem is a business problem

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

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

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

BIG-CITY CRIME IN 2023 HAD SOME BUSINESSES SAYING ENOUGH IS ENOUGH   

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

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

Virtually every day, there’s another story about big box retailers and small mom and pop grocery stores going out of business because illegal immigrants have been stealing from them, or have been involved in homicides inside them, or shootings inside the stores, or stabbings, or violently attacking cops. Illegals and their crime wave have gone way up, while law and order has gone way down. And it’s bankrupting localities – early estimates of hundreds of billions of dollars lost to welfare, free food, free healthcare, free housing.

In many cases, displacing people from their homes, displacing kids from their schools and classrooms, making streets almost unwalkable 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 sovereignty collapse at the border. It’s a public safety collapse in the interior of the country. And it’s a fiscal collapse. Or, to be even more blunt, the economics of illegal immigration are becoming just as bad as the criminality.

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH SEXUAL ASSAULT, MURDER CONVICTIONS ROAMING US STREETS: ICE DATA 

Make no mistake about it, this border problem is a business problem.

And Kamala Harris wants to raise taxes on businesses, both large and small, in order to punish them even more – as though her missing in action as border czar, and her attacks on ICE (remember “reimagining ICE”?) weren’t enough. 

She said in Pittsburgh a couple days ago that the American dream is no longer attainable. Well, one reason for that is that closing the border and ending the crime wave in sanctuary cities is unattainable, 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 homicide, 16,000 sexual assault convictions.

The number of illegals who are not detained, but should be deported, according to ICE, has soared from 3.7 million in FY 2021 to nearly 4.8 million in 2022, to over 7 million in 2023. And that doesn’t include at least a couple million got-a-ways, or those coming in on secret flights, or through the CBP One phone app.

One of the amazing things about these horrible numbers is that the administration has had them for quite some time, but never released them — that is until ICE sent a letter to House member Tony Gonzales. And then the word got out.

In other words, Biden-Harris was in on a big illegal immigration cover-up, weren’t they?

So, Border Czar Kamala is heading back to the Arizona border today for the first time in three years, in a trip that just might remind voters of just how disastrous 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’re blaming Trump for opposing the Senate border bill, which by the way wouldn’t have passed in the first place and would have allowed just under 2 million illegals per year, topping 5,000 per week.

No bargain there. So that argument is balderdash.

How about Mr. Trump’s ideas: Catch and deport, remain in Mexico, finish building the wall, end all the sanctuary cities, shut down all entries through the migrant phone app, and even liberate places like Aurora, Colorado — which has been taken over by Venezuelan criminal gangs.

Sounds like a pretty good plan to me. And that’s “The Riff.”

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