To the editor,

Many political conservatives like me have been asking how the federal government has allowed the “border crisis” to get to the proportions it’s at. We’ve been aware since 2022 that enormous problems existed after attacks on President Trump’s border policies turned into alternative actions out of Washington. 

We continue to ask why, despite numerous visits to the Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California borders, no one in Congress has done anything about the growing numbers of entrants, lack of organization, billions of federal dollars, and misuse of border control agents and immigration officials in capturing and deporting the “migrants.” The situation has only worsened.  

To our amazement, some state governments have supported what is happening despite it creating immense pressures on their budgets, housing facilities, schools, and medical services. Reports of criminality, violence, and terrorist histories do nothing to keep illegal entrants from welcome and promises of food, shelter, phones, transportation and settlement by supposed caring American government officials and non-government charities.  

And still, today, though millions of those entrants roam our cities without danger of arrest or deportation, nothing changes. They arrive by bus and plane in the middle of the night to head for caregivers or the streets.  

This “compassionate care” has created long lines of legal immigration applicants patiently waiting years to become full-fledged, law abiding, patriotic citizens. It has also placed citizens, including veterans, on waiting lists for medical care and insurance reimbursements. Meanwhile the Mexican cartels make fortunes on trafficking Chinese controlled substances like fentanyl into our interior and the bodies of young people.  

Thanks to Attorney Jonathan Turley we finally have an answer to why states are vulnerable to what is being called an invasion. And we can excuse our concerned congressional representatives for doing nothing but reporting the truth. 

According to Turley’s column in The Hill, the “seeds of this disaster were planted by the Supreme Court over a decade ago, in Arizona v. U.S., if not earlier. In that case, a 5-3 majority ruled against a state seeking to enforce immigration laws in light of what it described as a vacuum of federal action. The court declared that the states were preempted or barred from taking such action.” 

State officers are only allowed to investigate immigration status with reasonable suspicion of illegality, squelching aggressive state action. While numerous internal and external players are invested in keeping the numbers growing, state agencies have their hands tied, legally and financially. No one is addressing the losses and lack of protection private property owners on the border suffer.   

If readers think that Wisconsin is not affected by the influx, guess again. Sanctuary cities and counties don’t advertise how many undocumented migrants arrive and how they’re supported. A letter from a county sheriff was the first publicized request for money because the financially unassisted “migrants” were arriving in Whitewater in enough numbers to cause concern. More are arriving at ports of entry, ten of which are in the Wisconsin and Minnesota Great Lakes area.  

Those of us living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area need to be aware that Minneapolis is a target sanctuary city with an international airport, proud to have thousands of newly arrived non-English speaking children in their public schools. The language of concern is not Spanish, but tens of other languages that most ESL teachers are not prepared to handle. Politicians ignore the trafficked drugs and human victims.  

Those who think this isn’t a political problem of federal and state governance have their heads in the sand. It won’t end if nothing reverses in Washington and in legal interpretation of law. Our most vulnerable taxpayers will suffer economically and legally.

Some political decisions have far-reaching consequences. And some consequences cannot be reversed.

Donna Okeefe

Town of River Falls