VICTOR JOECKS: The assault victims of open borders
Leftist immigration policies are contributing to the brutal sexual assaults of an untold number of women and girls. Instead of reversing course, most Democrat politicians ignore it
Under President Joe Biden, the border is wide open. Several million immigrants have illegally come across since he took office. More than 2.3 million have claimed asylum and received Notices to Appear. For many, it will take years to have their case heard. In the meantime, they can move throughout the country. Another 1.5 million are estimated to have entered illegally without being caught.
That is an invasion. Border towns have long been overrun, but now, even self-proclaimed sanctuary cities, such as New York City, are now bemoaning the onslaught.
Unchecked illegal immigration is problematic for a host of reasons. But here’s one that’s received precious little outrage from national Democrats. Human smugglers and criminal gang members are frequently raping women and girls in border towns such as Reynosa and Matamoros.
“We got to hear women tell us their story, and their stories are brutalizing,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said about a recent trip she took to the border. She continued, “When a woman sits there and she tells you not just about being raped, but how many times a day she’s raped; when she tells you about having to lay in that bed while they come in and out and in and out, it’s disgusting and it’s despicable.”
Reuters recently had a heart-wrenching report about eight woman who had been sexually assaulted along the southern border. A woman named Carolina said she was kidnapped. One of her captors pulled her from a stash house and raped her on a broken-down bus.
“It’s the saddest, most horrible thing that can happen to a person,” Carolina said.
It’s not just human smugglers doing this. In some border towns, criminal gangs demand funds from migrants entering their territory. “Rape is part of the torture process to get the money,” Bertha Bermúdez Tapia, a sociologist at New Mexico State University, told Reuters.
Biden isn’t personally responsible for these horrendous crimes, of course. But it’s vital to note the role his open border policy is playing in enabling this crisis. If illegal immigrants didn’t believe they could enter the United States under Biden’s open border policy, fewer would make the journey. That would lead to fewer rapes.
But good luck getting Democrats to visit the border, much less talk about this. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. made multiple trips to the border during the Trump administration, which resulted in the infamous photos of her crying. But she hasn’t been back during Biden’s time in office. Why isn’t she condemning Biden for instituting policies that create these conditions?
The tragedies don’t stop at the border. Last month, an 11-year-old girl in Minnesota said she was taken to a home where she was tied up and raped by several men. Local police arrested Oscar Ernesto Luna. He appears to be a U.S. citizen, but they also found several other individuals located at that address. “Eleven of which were transported by U.S. Border Patrol to be processed as illegal immigrants,” local police wrote on Facebook.
In May, Maryland authorities accused Jose Roberto Hernandez-Espinal of raping a 15-year-old girl and a woman in separate attacks at a public park. Hernandez is in the country illegally.
The left has spent years demanding people “believe women” when it comes to sexual assault. But it doesn’t want to talk about these women and girls because what the horrors they’ve endured are politically inconvenient.
Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.